October 28, 2004 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Photograph by Glenn Robinson
On Robert Wyland’s first trip to the beach, when he was 14, he saw a gray whale; inspired, he captured his impressions with a paintbrush. Today, the artist known only as Wyland has completed 91 marine-life murals in 70 cities worldwide, covering 64 million square feet of ceilings, roofs, and walls with paint in the name of whale conservation and ocean cleanup.
Wyland describes himself as “Jimmy Buffett on steroids,” a hybrid of artist, educator, environmentalist, and scuba diver. He began the Wyland Foundation in Aliso Viejo, Calif., in 1993 to educate schoolchildren about water-conservation efforts, using large-scale artwork to spread his message. His art also graces special-order license plates in California and Florida, which have helped raise more than $6-million for classroom conservation programs.
The Wyland Ocean Challenge is the artist’s plan to complete 100 murals across the globe. In 2008, the artist plans to begin work on his final mural, to be painted on a 10-mile stretch of the Great Wall of China. With the help of the United Nations, he is staging a contest, entitled Hands Across the Ocean, to bring 13 children from each of 191 countries to work alongside him painting their favorite sea animals on the Great Wall — 2,483 budding artists and conservationists in total. Once that project is completed, Wyland says, he will retire from painting and turn his sights to creating 100 life-size whale sculptures.
“If you want to do big things, you’ve got to have big ideas,” he says. “And not much is bigger than a whale.”
Much of the Wyland Foundation’s $500,000 annual budget comes from private donations. Wyland also has sold his own artwork from time to time to help finance the group’s education and public-art programs.
Here, Wyland touches up a spotted eagle ray on a mural he painted inside the International Airport in the Republic of Palau, which he calls “the best mural I’ve ever done.”
