In 1914 Charlie Chaplin, while staying at the Windsor Hotel, wrote a letter to his brother advising him that he was quitting Vaudeville to pursue a career in Hollywood. This Mural is one of an elite but growing group which is purposely well lit for night viewing.
Jennifer- "We have a real soft spot for the Windsor Hotel. Rick (Penner) and Isaac were great from the get go we really enjoyed dealing with them. A lot of people overlook the Windsor hotel not realizing that it has so much heritage and history to it when people realize that Charlie Chaplin stayed here in a significant point in his career he opens the door to conversations about who else stayed here the history of the building itself and who has stayed there is just phenomenal." In 1914, while staying at the Windsor Hotel, Chaplin wrote a letter to his brother: in the letter he stated his intention of quitting Vaudeville and pursuing a new career in motion pictures- a truly pivotal point in his career.
The Mural is based on a still from Chaplin's 1918 black-and-white film, A Dog's Life, as well as back-referencing his Vaudeville Stage career with the stage curtains. The Hotel had told the artists of their imminent plans to put lights on the roof to spotlight what their Mural would be. Mandy: "We thought 'that's cool, let's make this look like a stage, and tie the old with the new, a little bit of contemporary, and add some red curtains on the black and white still', we thought it would be fun and something different, so we did it."
The Mural was rendered completely freehand, and was generating interest before it was even completed. Mandy: "There were a lot of residents living in the hotel who wanted to be part of our daily routine that would come and talk to us." Today, it's a beautiful Mural to see, even at night with the benefit of those lovely spotlights shining on it.
Jennifer: "We had to pay a lot of attention to the details of people's faces and bodies. Charlie Chaplin was very important obviously because we just couldn't get his face wrong and the woman standing next to him was rendered to look identical to the photo still we had." Mandy: "We haven't mastered our craft with people, with human activity in a painting. It's something that we still work on today. We like it because it has it has a very unique look to it."
