Hi Everyone,

So far in my career as a fine art photographer, I have been overwhelmingly lucky to enjoy many exciting successes. Today, though, I am humbled to share the latest accomplishment that has been a little over a year and a half in the making. Last Friday, upon retuning from thefirst week of my book tour, I learned that my imageLlamas White Balloons was officially a billboard art installation on the iconic Sunset Strip. Seriously, my mind was blown.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Last year, I learned about Green Art Consultancy, which is a LA based group that focuses its efforts in advancing the conservation of public art's role in green building. Here's a bit more information, directly from their website - The consultancy teams with progressive public and private agencies, artists, architects and urban developers in the U.S. and abroad, to increase the aesthetic appeal of new construction and city planning with site-specific public art. Green Public Art specializes in the integration of public art into green building projects and provides comprehensive project management services for both public and private spaces including conceptual programming, artist and material selection, community engagement strategies, as well as oversight of fabrication, installation and maintenance of artworks Appreciating what Green Artstrives to achieve,I decided to reach out to Rebecca Ehemann, the Founder & Principal of Green Public Art Consultancy, who alsoserves as the Public Art Coordinator for the City of West Hollywood, CA to see if I could submit my work for her consideration. Much to my surprise and happiness, she wrote back saying that they actually had an opening coming up, but first I'd need to submit a more formalized proposal.

After much thought and deliberation, I decided on submitting Llamas with White Balloons from my series, Far Far Away.In the proposal, I explained to Rebecca and the rest of the board, who would be considering my work for the public installation that...

To me West Hollywood has always represented a place where people can come and be whoever theywish to be and I felt the larger-than-life llamaembodied the character of this amazing city (especially popping off the sides of the billboard).

And then, that was that. I didn't hear much for quite a while, to the point that I almost gave up on the idea of seeing this larger than life Llama come into creation. Of course, though, no sooner had I convinced myself thatit wasn't going to happen, it did. When I heard it was officially up, I jumped in my car to go and see it in person. Peaking through the trees on a side street between Sunset Blvd and Fountain was where I got my first glimpse of the Big Llama on Sunset.

Immediately wanting to get a better angle to photograph it, I reached out to The Mondrian Hotel, which is perfectly located to see the Llama from an east facing room overlooking the celebrated Sunset Strip. As luck would have it, they had the perfect room available, so I booked it on the spot. Seeing it from this perspective was absolutely incredible! As great as it was, though I also love the idea of drivers cruising by on this heavily traveled strip of Sunset doing a double take thinking - Wait, was that a Llama??

Creating art that makes someone stop in their tracks and take a second look is something I strive for in everything I do, so to see it come to life at such a massive scale on one of the most iconic streets in the world...well, it truly leaves me speechless and overjoyed. Have you had a Big Llama siting? For those of you who have, I hope you will Instagram your picturewith the hashtag #FindtheBigLlama, I'll be keeping a look out on my Instagram or snapchat (@graymalin).

Cheers!

xx Gray