Across a busy street from where dozens of skateboarders flipped, skidded and careened at a San Francisco skate park, Amanda Lynn was making big art. The noted Bay Area muralist was removing graffiti and freshening up a massive mural she’d painted years back that wrapped around the wall of an el ectronics store, blossoming with bright colors, flowers and animals that evoked the escape of nature into a hardscrabble concrete intersection. “Creating moments of joy for people is so powerful,” Lynn said. Wearing black jeans that showed as much paint as the walls, Lynn fielded a steady stream of accolades from neighbors and passersby who stopped to thank her for the infusion of painted nature. Over the past couple of decades, Lynn’s art has transformed many walls across the Bay Area and San Francisco into similarly colorful scenes – flowers adorn a Target store wall on Geary Street, an intricately painted woman’s face stares out from a restaurant on Larkin and Sutter, butterflies, plants and another face occupy the alley of 111 Minna Art Gallery. She has left her colorful painted mark all across the city. “I’ve been told that I tattoo walls,” she said, her own tattoos peaking out from her shirt sleeves. Mural artist Amanda Lynn touches up one of her murals in San Francisco’s SoMa District. In her hometown of Forestville, a suite of Lynn’s nature-based murals greet visitors as they enter the Sonoma County town. They cover a nightclub, a store, a long wall and a children’s park. “I feel nature is a universal connector of all,” Lynn said. “Everybody can identify with nature, even if you’re from a city. Everybody knows what a weed looks like.” Lynn’s life was formed in nature, specifically in the woods of western Pennsylvania. Her foray into mural painting came at the age of 16 and was actually intended as a punishment. She was behind the wheel with her mother in the car when she got popped with a speeding ticket for going way too fast. As atonement, her mom required her to paint flowers in the hallway of the family home. “I fell in love with it and my punishment ended up being my career,” Lynn said. She moved to San Francisco and fell in with graffiti artists who taught her another important life lesson: learn to paint for the love of it, not just the money. She took the lesson to heart but still turned it into a career. While the graffiti painters employed aerosol cans to make their art, Lynn painted her murals with old school brushes. “My brushes never let me down,” she said grinning. “A brush never gets clogged.” Lynn loved the frenetic energy of San Francisco’s streets, the paradox of bringing beauty to walls within the concrete jungle. She imbued the woods and creatures of her childhood on the walls of the city — bright green hues serving a startling discovery as people rounded the corners of the Mission District or Tenderloin. Mural artist Amanda Lynn touches up one of her murals in San Francisco’s SoMa District. She saw murals as a piece of public art anyone could enjoy without buying a ticket or having to gain access. “Public mural art and public art in general speaks to me because it’s art for everyone and it really connects with people in their own place and own time,” Lynn said. Lynn’s career was reaching new heights when three years ago it all came crashing down. She fell off a scaffolding while painting a mural, plunging 16 feet. She broke her pelvis in 15 places and cracked a couple ribs. As she slowly healed, she required physical therapy to learn to walk again, and the pain was a constant. But somewhere within the experience, she became thankful for the crash and its unexpected lessons. “I had just this outpouring of generosity and love that even to this day chokes me up,” she said. “It also just showed me how much people actually care about what I do and me as a person.” After she healed, she went right back and finished the mural. The experience though, taught her she wasn’t invincible. Since then she takes more care on ladders and focuses on projects that bring her joy. Mural artist Amanda Lynn touches up one of her murals in San Francisco’s SoMa District. She’s recently noticed more women getting into mural painting, where she was often the only one. The new generations of street artists give her hope. “It’s become such a more accepting environment for younger girls to be out and starting,” Lynn said. “There’s many generations below me now that are doing such incredible things.” Back in her hometown of Forestville, Lynn stood on a mechanical lift painting a wall for a homeowner. The base color was cloaked in her signature neon green along with vines, flowers and forest creatures. She descended the lift and stood back to admire the bare green wall, folding her tattooed arms to gauge her progress and perhaps ponder possibility. She was in her happy place — surrounded by forest, conjuring another one on a previously unremarkable blank wall. “Nature just speaks to me,” Lynn said, admiring her enormous canvas. “So I kind of get a vision.” ...read more read less