Will Lytle is a second generation Woodstock native who lives in a hut he built himself in the woods. He is the artist behind Stream on the Wall, a mural series in Woodstock.

For about a month, we had worked on the idea of designing one big mural instead of three medium ones proposed in our current version, on the side wall of the Sun Flower building, facing Woodstock Healing Arts and A&P. The Sun Flower owner Bob Whitcomb and other stakeholders gave our proposal a serious consideration, but because of their plan on converting the space in front of the wall into a seating area with an auto charging station, they concluded that the timing could not be worked out.

The two emails below were written by Will after we received their decision. He writes like poetry in the same vibe as his artwork, so I felt they needed to be shared.

 

Hey Keiko good morning,

So ive been thinking on it,

Honestly i think we should see not getting the sunflower wall as a blessing

It was too big, not the right surface and that parking in front really sucked haha

Im feeling optimistic about moving forward, in other words

I think given the opportunity to rethink a bit,

We should try to get back to one of our earlier ideas

Namely the idea of doing the mural in a couple different pieces and places

That way we dont need to find the ‘perfect’ single location,

But rather embrace the idea of doing two or three sort of medium sized experiences,

Filled in between by wall tattoos and smaller scenes

So as an example, imagine if we did one section of the stream at woofstock, way on one end of town,

Then proceeded to the yum yum wall, sort of in the middle

Then ended down at the playhouse, or similar area at that end of town

This allows peeps to progress thru town, get a sense of distance and travel

Its better for local businesses cause we have the attention spread

And the wall tattoos can then exist as these sort of connecting dots

Ha ha ok thats a long rambler, too much coffee

But let me know what you think of that,

Happy to draw up some examples of how that one stream scene could be broken up into nice bits

Hope you are well and enjoying this lovely day,

WILL

I had a moment this morning so I put together this little diagram,

we have our three seperate mural sketches in there, each one depicting a slightly different stage and ecosystem of the Little Beaverkill

Ohayo slopes, Yankeetown/Wilson State Marshes, and finally the last stretch before it enters the esopus

again these are early visions, a lot can change as we do more research, but this should be pretty close

I also wanted to include a little map that shows the directional progress one would take if they were ‘following the stream’

and its also useful to imagine how the wall tattoos would work, as connecting dots as I’ve said before

let me know if this is clear and useful to you,

hope you’re having a nice weekend

WILL