After moving into his home on Channing Way in West Windsor in 2000, Mikel Cirkus took a thoughtful look at the shed at the top of his driveway and realized he was looking at a perfect canvas. So Cirkus, marketing maven by profession and artist in all respects, went to work. What had been a blank wall is now the scene of two dancing and drumming turtles at a country train station, inspired by the 1977 Grateful Dead album, “Terrapin Station.”
Cirkus’ shed mural, which he defines as street art, would be one of several paintings that are now transforming various sheds throughout West Windsor. Soon after completing the mural on his own property, Cirkus discovered another “canvas” while taking a bike ride on a Saturday afternoon. When the shed came into view between Penn Lyle and Woodmere Way, he stopped short. “The shed was screaming for a mural,” he says.
Taking pause from his ride, Cirkus walked to the door of the owner’s home and rang the bell. When Lucy Rosenberg answered, Cirkus introduced himself and simply asked if he could paint the shed. He would choose the subject and it would not cost her anything, he told her.
Though taken by surprise, Mrs. Rosenberg was open to the idea and said she’d call him after conferring with her husband. A few days later, the phone call came. Yes, he could paint the shed if he still wanted to. He did, and what was a blank wall, now displays a vintage sign dating back to 1916: “Ice Cold Coca-Cola Sold Here.”
A shed on Wellington Drive displays another of Cirkus’ murals: a Texaco garage with four gas pumps and tires mounted on the garage wall and the back end of a blue car parked in front. The scene is inspired by an Allman Brothers album from the 1970s. The garage on the original album cover bore a sign, “Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas.” The shed in West Windsor is perfect for this picture, says Cirkus. “The wooded area in back helps set the scene.”
Another shed mural off Manor Ridge Drive displays a golden sunflower bloom, inspired by an Orangedale fruit crate label, estimated date, late 1940s.
His most recent mural can be found at the West Windsor Farmers Market off Vaughn Drive at the Princeton Junction Train Station. It features a brick-red pickup truck filled with fresh vegetables with a barn and windmill in the background, inspired by a painting from Mollie B. Creative, a graphic design studio in Nashville. When the tents and the farmers’ stands are up and shoppers are milling about the market on a Saturday, the painting blends right in with the scene. It belongs there, says Cirkus.
While Cirkus paints shed murals at no charge, he doesn’t think of the activity as a hobby. Painting these murals is meditative, Cirkus says. He draws his inspiration from originals that can be found in galleries, on album covers, fruit crates and signs, dating as far back as 100 years ago. Cirkus’ interest in scenes from times past is matched by his fascination with art that is being created now and art that has yet to be created.
In fact, at his “day job” at Firmenich in Plainsboro, Cirkus forecasts future consumer trends. In one of his roles as the global director of creative marketing, he works as a “Trenz” team member exploring street art and culture happening today to predict what will become part of the consumer landscape tomorrow. Working as photo journalists and cultural anthropologists, the Trenz teams discover global patterns that become ideas for consumer package goods that Firmenich will flavor or perfume for the world’s most recognized brands, Cirkus says.
Cirkus discusses the Trenz process in several interviews and articles on his website and blog, mikelcirkus.com and streetcirkus.com, supported with photos, videos, and journal entries of his excursions. The real power of trends is in the application of deep cultural insights to real business challenges and solutions, he says.
The Trenz teams visit cities across the U.S. and throughout the world. Talking about a tour in Tel Aviv, Cirkus says the team usually goes to the most distant point out from the center and closest to the edge of a city. They’re often bohemian in nature, a little on the dangerous side, and usually quite colorful in every way. Cirkus calls them the trend kitchens that cook up the next big thing and impact global change. “ We’re not looking for change on Main Street or City Center,” he says.
“Once you have found your way to the edge, you simply begin gathering your impulses and observations from the real life environment you’re in. You’re hunting and gathering the things you may or may not have ever seen before. You observe and ask, what’s new, what’s the same, what hasn’t changed over time, what has evolved, what has disappeared completely?”
These collected observations cluster over time into what Cirkus calls future scenarios. Think of them as the folders in which you want to put like objects and ideas, he says. As these scenarios get global momentum, you might find they have begun to form a living trend.
From one country to another, or even within the U.S. from one coast to another, Cirkus says you can observe the same messages being communicated from the street on a global scale. Aside from traveling, you can observe these messages over the Internet.
Worldwide, the Trenz teams visit Bangkok, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, and London, among other locations. Two of the main cities in the U.S. are Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
Cirkus’ love for art and culture goes back to his childhood in Clifton. He has been drawing and painting since he was seven years old and painted his first mural in his parents’ basement when he was 13, “The Yellow Submarine,” based on the 1960s Beatles album. “Last week, when I was painting the Farmers Market shed, I remembered that Yellow Submarine painting, and thought, ‘I’m doing the same thing today.’ The difference is that painting in my parents’ home in Clifton was private. The shed murals I paint today are public. You could say, my artistic expression has grown from an introverted experience to an extroverted one,” says Cirkus.
When he was about 14, his parents introduced him to one of their friends who was working in advertising. That’s when Cirkus learned that the title of art director existed, and then and there, set his goal to become one. After high school, he went to Syracuse University and then the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, earning a degree in advertising design. He landed his first art directing job just before graduating and has been working in the field ever since.
Cirkus says that while his parents’ careers in real estate did not influence his vocation, the family lifestyle did. “We grew up going to museums, concerts, and shows. They inspired me. Culture was just a part of our lives, and I credit generations of my family for that,” he says, adding that it helped him develop an artistic perspective.
It would seem so. In addition to putting his artistic talents to work at Firmenich, Cirkus’ online visual arts portfolio (mikelcirkus.com) includes portraits, denim jackets, stickers, immortal design (personalized tattoos and custom memorial headstones), landscapes, and the aforementioned shed murals, which he sees as a form of street art. The website also includes a gallery of 40 portraits including B.B. King, Robin Williams, Pat Metheny, and Alice Waters.
There is also a separate gallery for graffiti. Last summer he painted live at the Burning Man festival and did a corporate piece for Gatorade’s Headquarters. In Trenton, Cirkus — a.k.a. MAXE — paints on the permission walls in the Cork Yard at TerraCycle. “I couldn’t do so without the blessings of Trenton’s own Leon Rainbow and Vicious Styles Crew,” Cirkus says.
He writes poetry, creates recipes, and runs a wine blog. One of his recipes, Fire & Ice Scream, featured on CorePower.com, finishes with Cayenne pepper. Cirkus calls it a liquid alarm clock, a piquant slurry of caffeine and protein with dessert-like richness. His wine blog, Le Chai Times, includes reviews, related stories, and a gallery of cork prints.
After perusing Circus’ galleries and writings, you might be thinking, all he needs to do now is write a novel. In fact, he already has: “Rock Dove: Evolution of an Individual,” based on real life experience. The story begins when Cirkus was about 29. He had been offered a business project designing and executing some brochures for a seminar that focused on developing skills for success in all areas of life. To secure the assignment, he agreed to attend the workshop so he could fully understand what it entailed.
The workshop turned out to be more of a soul searching experience than a skill-building seminar. During one of the exercises — in abbreviated terms — he experienced energy moving through his body that would later be described to him as a Kundalini event. This experience led him on a six-month journey that included, among other processes, rebirthing, a Course in Miracles, the Jewish Kabala, Native American- Lakota sweat lodge ceremonies, and even a brief encounter with fire walking.
While Cirkus doesn’t claim to be an enlightened being because of these experiences, he does have a deeper understanding of his personal nature and a more open view of what one might describe as non-ordinary reality. But he never felt compelled to join a monastery or live alone in the woods. Today, Cirkus, a self-described devoted family man, has two college age daughters, both alumnae of High School North, and lives in West Windsor with his wife, Chris, who manages the West Windsor Farmers Market.
If anything, Cirkus’ inner journey has deepened his passion for the world “out there,” the one we experience through sense and intellect: the visual arts, music, wine and food. In his role as global director of creative marketing, this world is where the streets and corporate offices meet.
“Like the Zen story goes,” says Cirkus ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry, water.’”
As this paper goes to press, Cirkus is planning a trip to Detroit for a customer presentation and an informal Trenz walk. He hasn’t yet shared where his next West Windsor shed mural will be. We’ll just have to wait for Cirkus to claim his next canvas.
For more information, visit www.mikelcirkus.com or www.streetcirkus.com.
