Erin Minckley drew inspiration for her Mayfair mural by walking through the North Side neighborhood on spring and summer days and shooting phone photos of the flowers.
Now, the Mayfair resident and custom wallpaper designer shows off the flowers in her “Welcome to Mayfair” mural at 4219 W. Lawrence Ave. on the side of Relativity Textiles, the business that she owns.
“I literally was walking Mayfair and taking the flora of the neighborhood and incorporating it in,” she says. “In Chicago, when it’s winter, we need something to boost our mood. And we need to see color, and we need to see flowers and organic things. Otherwise it’s quite drab.”
In the summer, she says, “the blue at the top of the mural matches the sky.”
Minckley spent time over the summers of 2023 and 2024 painting the mural, which features orange lilies, pink tulips, lavender irises, purple lavender and more.
Her favorite, she says, are the two violet alliums toward the center of the wall.
“That was really fun to figure out how to paint and give it some depth,” she says.
A native of Salt Lake City, Minckley moved to Chicago 16 years ago for graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she says. She has a degree in fiber and material studies and previously worked at a wallpaper screen printing factory.
Shortly after graduating, she started her own business designing wallpaper. She’s not a stranger to murals though, so when the opportunity arose to paint one on the side of her building, she volunteered.
The 25-by-25-foot mural was commissioned by the Pulaski Elston Business Association as a way to remind Lawrence Avenue commuters that Mayfair, which is within Albany Park, is its own destination, says Amie Zander, the group’s executive director.
“It’s making it more vibrant and bright and dresses up the neighborhood,” Zander says. “It’s a great way for people to identify where they’re at and know that this is a place. This isn’t a drive-through.”
The wall was prepped and Minckley used brushes, rollers and latex paint to create the artwork, she says.
“As soon as your brush starts getting crusty and damaged is when it becomes a better tool,” she says. “When you’re painting on brick you have to shove paint into the grooves. So the crustier the brush, the better it is sometimes.”
Neighbors joined in, and one longtime Mayfair resident taped an umbrella to her lift so she wouldn’t get sunburned while painting. Others honked their support while driving by or stopped to talk as they walked past.
“Random strangers were coming out of the woodwork to tell me they appreciated it. That’s what public art does,” Minckley says. “I felt like I was a bit of a performance artist for a couple months. Everyone was watching the progress and taking photos.”