Senior Miles Gunnett of Ramona, a city in San Diego County, has become a burgeoning mural artist while at Concordia, and his work is featured in several places on campus and in a prominent location in his own hometown.
“I never say no to anything,” says Gunnett with a laugh. “It’s all word of mouth. People know me as the kid who knows how to paint and draw.” Gunnett, who comes from a family of educators on his father’s side and a mother who was a nurse in the U.S. Navy, chose Concordia because he wanted “a small, faith- based school close enough to home but far away enough I could be on my own and grow,” he says. “It’s been great. I love the community. It’s been an awesome place to grow and find new people who are like minded. Everyone is open and inviting, wanting to be your friend and seeing how they can help you. The biggest thing I’ll take away is the community Concordia has.”
Gunnett says he has been drawing since he could pick up a pencil. His first commissioned mural was in Concordia’s Creative Edge living learning community dorm lounge. The scene he painted on an 11-by-16-foot section of wall above a window depicts a character in a red hoodie, holding a brush and surrounded by leaves and orange mountains with a bright yellow background. The vibe is “spacey, futuristic, and cartoony,” he says.
“They gave me free rein to do what I wanted. The purpose was to give students something fun to look at and add color to the dorms,” Gunnett says.
That summer he was asked to do two more murals on campus, one in Sigma for the Surf Club and another for the small group room in Rho. The Surf Club mural, painted on a storage closet and a 6-by-10-foot wall, makes it appear there is a life-size surf shack and a beach scene behind it that one could walk into.
The Rho mural is a massive 5 by 25 feet, and shows a giant wave and sun rays spanning an entire hallway, graced with a Bible verse.
“On all my murals, I leave hidden features about me, either a life verse — which is, ‘Fear Not,’ from Isaiah 41:10 — or my initials hidden somewhere, something I can walk by and look at,” he says.
Gunnett always starts with his darkest background color, then projects the drawing onto the wall with a projector and traces it, working through increasingly lighter colors and hand painting with a brush (and, usually, on a ladder).
His career as an artist took a big leap when the Ramona Heart Mural Association commissioned him to paint a scene of the city and one of its honored former sheriffs (also a Gunnett family friend) on three 8-by-10 metal panels which now hang on a public wall downtown. The effort took nearly 100 hours, most of it accomplished on the weekends when Gunnett would drive down from Concordia where he was taking a full slate of classes.
“It felt never-ending,” he confesses. “It was a really fun project and I was definitely able to grow as an artist and learn from it. There was so much detail and I had to make everything look like the photos because I was copying landmarks and a portrait of [former officer] Leonard Walker in front of his car. There wasn’t an area I could change or take artistic liberties because people know what these landmarks look like.”
He used special anti-graffiti and anti-fading coating to protect it from vandalism and UV rays, and if the mural suffers any damage, he can remove a panel and take it back to his studio for repairs, then reinstall it.
As he nears the end of his time as an undergraduate, Gunnett appreciates how his faith has been enlivened at Concordia.
“I’d gone to church and youth group growing up, but Concordia had the tools and resources to help me grow,”he says. “The worship services they offer, SHOUT [midweek worship nights], Monday chapel, and being in community with people that aren’t afraid to talk about their struggles and what they’re going through in their walks with God has been very beneficial to me.”
While his work as an artist is increasingly in demand — lately, he is fielding numerous commissions to custom-paint helmets for people who race sand buggies in the desert near where he lives — Gunnett wants to teach fourth and fifth grades after he graduates and paint on the side as a commissioned artist.
“Growing up with teachers, teaching is something I’ve always wanted to do,” he says.