34 June / July 2023 - Issue 247 www.signlink.co.uk A Ceiling Mural in Panama City Camila (known as Cami to her friends) was born in Colombia, but moved to Panama as a child shortly after America handed over control of the Panama Canal at the end of 1999. The result was a large area of the city left vacant where the Clayton military base had been located. Cami’s family settled there, running a bakery and café that’s still serving coffee and cake today. Prior to the handover, this part of the city had been earmarked for development as a centre of research and innovation. Under the banner of Ciudad del Saber (City of Knowledge), the 120-hectare area has since emerged as a hub for science and creativity in Panama. One small part of this is the co-working space and ‘incubator’ Innova 109, housed in a former church. Do Something Crazy After studying in Buenos Aires, Cami returned to Panama City and started taking on sign painting jobs. Her café was the obvious first client and joining her in this endeavour was Damiano Damianovich, who she met in Argentina. The managers of Innova 109 saw Cami painting signs nearby and approached her about decorating their flexible events space. Cami recalls the brief being extremely loose – essentially “do something crazy”. Since she was already part of the wider Ciudad del Saber community, the project was close to her heart, and she had a good understanding of the organisation, and the space. During the project’s development, further themes emerged, including the importance of ideas and the hard work required to make them happen. The client wanted to inspire the Innova 109 community and promote their entrepreneurial and supportive culture. From Sketching to Ceiling Cami and Damiano started by developing a colour palette and some broad graphic themes for the work. This was all done on an iPad using ProCreate. At this stage, the exact nature of the final piece wasn’t known, and things were complicated by the planned installation of noise-reduction panels on the walls. This led to the idea of working on the ceiling, which determined the final direction for the project. Cami recalls this being hard to visualise Sam Roberts takes a look at Panama’s answer to the Sistine Chapel which has people looking up at a mural that provided a steep learning curve and sore necks to sign painters Camila Borrero and Damiano Damianovich ADVENTURES IN SIGN PAINTING WITH SAM ROBERTS ▼ Lettering above at Innova 109 in Panama City Sam Roberts is the editor and publisher of BLAG (Better Letters Magazine), the world’s only print and online publication dedicated to sign painting. He has written numerous books and articles on the craft and its history, and first became interested in the topic via the fading ‘ghost’ signs around London. SignLink subscribers can sign up with a special discount to the publication via bl.ag/signlink
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