Rip Cronk - Master Muralist of Venice Beach

I don’t know about you, but when I’m beat and running back up the beach towards Venice there are a couple of things that really cheer me up. Certainly seeing the pier does the trick, but even more I love seeing that giant image of the Venus of Venice skating at me, or the ecstatic chorus line painted on the wall up from the Sidewalk Cafe, or even the crazy graffiti artist hanging off a wall and painting VENICE on the side of a beach hotel.

That crazy artist is the man behind those and many more famous Venice walls: master muralist Rip Cronk.

Cronk came to LA in 1979 from art school in New Mexico, and he quickly fell in with the community of artists at SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center) on Venice Blvd. In 1980 he created “Venice on the Half Shell” on a wall near the current Venice Skate Park. A few years later, when the skate area became the canvas it remains for graffiti artists, Cronk expanded the work to include all sorts of tributes to and parodies of pop culture. When the bottom third of that version was written over by taggers, he made the current version that stands 40 feet tall and 100 feet wide.

Notice the guy on the skates with the guitar? That’s Harry Perry, “Cosmic Commander,” who’s also a fellow marathoner. You’ll see him running north up to Temescal most Saturdays, but by noon he’s got his rollerblades and his amp and guitar strapped on for a day of busking. He’s got t-shirts and CD’s for sale.

While Venus is Cronk’s first and most famous work, Venice Beach is full of his murals. Running south you might see “Starry Knight,” his tribute to Vincent Van Gough. South of Venus you’ll see a couple of his massive portraits: Jim Morrison (himself a former denizen of Venice), and a five story Abbot Kinney (the visionary developer of Venice).

Cronk’s mural work is lively in all senses of the word: they’re fun and they are current. They are also very much of the moment: exposed to the elements and the public they don’t live as long as work on canvas in a gallery. But that’s part of the fun...it’s part of what makes them so alive.

There’s a terrific short about Cronk right here…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ogYaFSSQ4

Check it out!