- When I'm painting, I feel like I'm in the right place.

Everything disappears, time stops.

I think my job as an artist right now is to celebrate diversity, but we are living at a time where all of that is being questioned.

If we are able to find common threads that unify us, that remind us that we are above all, we are all human.

I think that is the greatest thing about art.

I am Rafael Blanco.

I'm a public artist, which means that I travel the country doing public art projects.

I specialize in large scale murals that are site specific.

I work with communities and cities to create and transform gray and unforgotten places into cool sites that people will come and want to visit.

I'm originally from Spain.

I'm the youngest of six, and I come from a family that was interested in the arts.

I remember my mother taking me to all the museums back in Madrid, and that really made an impact in the way that I grew up.

When I was a kid, I used to stutter a lot.

Drawing and painting were a refuge for me.

No one was criticizing me when I was drawing.

I developed a visual communication and being able to see the masterworks right in front of me and having the time to draw and paint really developed that visual language.

So rejection has shaped my life.

I have been rejected so many different times.

I still be rejected, but I think failures shape your determination in life.

Rejection has taught me my purpose to create art.

I was rejected seven years in a row to enter into the MFA program, which is the Masters of Fine Arts.

During those seven years, I questioned myself every single day about my vocation.

I actually stopped painting for a while, but those struggles taught me that I should be painting for me and not for others.

Eventually, I was accepted on my seventh year at the University of Nevada Reno, where I completed my MFA.

When I came to United States for the first time, I was in awe.

I was so surprised about the diversity.

Coming to this melting pot was confusing and fascinating.

That has stuck with me because I live diversity, I breathe diversity.

I'm from Spain, my wife is from Mexico.

Our kids were born here.

Ele de Linda.

A de amable.

A de amable.

Abuela!

Abuela!

I love that interconnection of different cultures trying to survive into this melting pot.

In my work, I try to express that struggle, but also that celebration of different cultures intertwined together.

We are definitely living a very divisive time.

Time.

When a community loses hope or that sense of belonging, you simply lose your identity.

We need to feel like we are part of a group of people.

It give us an identity, give us a sense of who we are.

Art has the potential to bring a common threat among all of us.

For me, public art is about giving hope, about making a statement about humanity.

My purpose is to paint humanity in all forms.

As a public artist, you are creating something for a city, for a community, for a group of people, which means that you are at the forefront of a big project.

You are the lucky one moving that brush.

- Okay, so basically what I'm doing right now is the first part that I'm dividing this into 11 and then I'm going back making that texture, and then I'm doing the lettering.

Then I'm doing the figures, and then I'm doing the background, which are different sites of Stanford.

So they are like different levels.

1, 2, 3, 4, and then like one more that is not printed yet, but like they're going to be like five different layers.

- A Stanford mural is a colorful, vibrant design.

It has a great array of color all the way passing through the color wheel with the letters of Stanford integrated in the background with five figures intertwined between them and different landmarks and things that the city has to offer between them.

So there are different layers of transparency going on as a way to show how everything is intertwined.

In our experience through a city, one of the most common questions that I get is how do you actually draw and kind of like make your design into such a large scale?

I actually use the grid system.

Basically what you do is that you divide your design into different squares and then you make those squares larger but still proportional to each other into the wall.

One inch by one inch square on your design becomes maybe a four or five by five feet on your wall.

Obviously once you are so close to the wall, you don't see the rest.

So you have to really trust the process.

Go square by square and then go back to the other side of the street, and that is when you realize I have to start over.

I made a mistake that I didn't see before, but that is part of the process.

I work for long periods of time.

Hey, how are you man?

Very good.

Good, good, good.

Obviously, I'm thinking about the technique.

I'm thinking about light and dark, how to create and how to make a wall that is going to be transforming into something that has life.

I may be physically by myself, but I don't feel like I'm by myself.

I'm at the forefront of a bigger project.

One of the most interesting things about this project is to inspire people.

No, it's because I grew up in Fairfield County that I wanted to travel the world.

Oh yeah.

Because I wanted to get out of the bubble.

And I don't mean to inspire for them to become artists or to be creative, but I mean to inspire people to see a positive change in the neighborhood, something is going on.

That is not bad news.

- Raphael, I love your artwork.

- Thank you.

- And I'm so happy that I fell across it.

- Thank - You.

I think it's beautiful and I'm hoping to come tomorrow.

Yeah.

Okay.

Right.

- Tomorrow attend.

There is a type of celebration.

It's like an unveiling where the city will come, and that is, as far as I know, I dunno.

I dunno what's happening.

I have no idea.

- Transformation that has taken place from a large blank white canvas to what we have here in front of us today.

This brings energy and brings smiles to the faces of our commuters, residents, and visitors.

Do you want me to try to get the mural in it?

That's good.

- Sharing my work with my family makes it even more meaningful to me.

Having a kid try to inspire him in a way that he sees his father doing what he loves, that he's able to follow a path that he's passionate about, is something that I hope that he gets in the future.

I really enjoyed that time of being so lucky to actually get paid for doing what I love.

To be able to travel to meet new friends wherever I go.

To have those awesome memories.

I like to reflect.

And then after a couple weeks to go home and to look back, did I spend those three weeks in Stanford where I met new people and had an amazing time where I was painting?

It seems all too perfect for me.

It is really a dream come true.