Q&A: Adrian Litman, Artist of 'Thriving Legacy'

Earlier this week, a mural by Fremont artist Adrian Litman was installed above the second set of front doors in the vestibule of the Barbara Lee Senior Center. Thriving Legacy is his third piece of public art after The Four Seasons and Garden Fantasy. But it won't be his last. He already has a sculpture for a bus shelter in the works.

Milpitas Patch: How did you come up with the idea for the mural?

Adrian Litman: The initial design did not include those particular faces. The initial design was a composition of various senior citizens in typical activities—playing tennis, walking, bingo—what people would do in retirement years and around the senior center.

When the project came to be approved by City Council, one of the members suggested maybe we should use portraits of those who had contributed to community over the years.

Patch: We didn't see you painting at the senior center. Why was that?

Litman: It was done in my studio, basically. I suggested from day one the artwork should not be done directly on the wall. Traditionally, this type of work is done directly on the wall. But there's trouble when a building needs to be demolished or for some reason the art work needs to be relocated.

So I decided to paint the mural on individual panels ... I used the so-called water-soluble oils. It's a relatively new medium ... Under controlled climate, they last forever. And I applied UV-protective varnishes on top of it.

Patch: Did you find the project challenging at times?

Litman: When I received the photographs, about 10 of 20 were black and white, low resolution or a small size, 2-inch-by-2-inch. And I went back and [asked if we could explain our needs] ... to the families. She [the staff liaison to public art committee] only got a few better ones. 

About six or seven, I had a hard time to figure out the skin, the color of the hair and eyes. Maybe I put someone with blue eyes instead of black, I'm not so sure. I'm not sure what was the real colors of their eyes and hair in reality at the time when the picture was taken. Being black and white, it's a little bit of guess work. So that was the only challenge.

Patch: Do you consider yourself a sculptor, a muralist or both?

Litman: I'm an artist that works from a multitude of media. I acquired all these skills through my artistic education. That's due to the fact that I went to a high school specialized in fine arts, and after that, I was accepted into the Institute of Art. This was back in Bucharest, Romania. When you go through that kind of a program, I got exposed to every kind of media in artistic activities, which includes drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics glass, fresco, murals and textiles.

Patch: Tell us about other projects you have in the pipeline.

Litman: The next project is also for the city for Milpitas. Shortly after they announced the senior center call for artists, there was another project to embellish a bus center located at Calaveras Boulevard and Main Street on the way to the Great Mall. 

The one that they picked ... I call it the birds of paradise. It's a metal structure [12-13-foot long] that's going to be installed on the top of the bus shelter. And it looks like the birds of paradise flowers, like a garden patch. The reason I did that is because when you look at the shelter, it's in front of the condominium building. On the opposite side is a big light-rail structure, which is not very pretty—a big concrete structure. I thought, there is not enough vegetation, so I should create more through my artwork. Let's do something through sculpture ... It is a very interpretive image of a garden. I thought we needed a spot of color in that location.