Michael Scott is back in Scranton, thanks to a West Philly artist

SCRANTON — The setting for the long-running NBC sitcom, The Office, is home to the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and its gamut of employees, and now it’s also home to a new mural put together by a team led by West Philadelphia mural artist Kala Hagopian.

The mural features black-and-white portraits of The Office characters juxtaposed against a colorful background embellished with some of the best one-liners from the show. Yes, “Identity theft is not a joke, Jim” has its pride of place. The work is completed; it’s unveiling is Oct. 6.

Hagopian, who studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded the Eco Mural Project in 2018 and has been busy painting “ecologically-themed public art pieces” all over Philadelphia:a scene from a coral reef on the wall of a deli, a green frog peeping out of a foliage of purple water lilies, a large luna moth by the 30th Street Station, and more.

It was her “The Mercantile Library Mural” in Center City that impressed Rose Randazzo, chair of Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program. Randazzo then got in touch with the artist over The Office-themed mural.

Hagopian first visited the mural site on Scranton’s 503 Lackawanna Ave. with Randazzo in the winter of 2020. Since then it has been an arduous process for her and her team. “We were painting a large scale mural with many tiny brushes,” she said.

The Inquirer caught up with Kala Hagopian and spoke to her about the sitcom, her life as a Philly artist, and, of course, the mural.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

So initially, I talk to folks about the design and gather information. Sometimes people have a lot of input and it’s really up to me to translate what I’m getting from them. There’s a lot of research that goes into the design, gathering reference material, organizing that material. And then within the design process, it’s really about being able to see what works best together visually, within the space.

Once that’s approved, I paint my murals on polytab (a thin synthetic material), which is what most Philly mural artists use.

It’s usually split into 5-by-5 pieces. So the whole mural design gets split up. We take these pieces and tack sections of the cloth together onto the studio wall. So this 86-foot-by-27-foot design was 90 of those sheets. We were literally just painting it section by section on the wall.

Using this method is awesome, because it lets me work all year round in my studio, and I can get in as much detail as I want, without being affected by the weather or the seasons.

We use mural gel, which permanently binds and adheres the cloth to the surface of the wall. It takes on the wall texture, so it looks like it was painted directly on the wall. Then we go in and do touch ups on all the seams. John Zerbe and Malachi Floyd installed the mural over a 15-day period. Then I was literally painting over every seam of that mural. I had a great time because I was in my studio all summer. So for the first time all summer, I was outside on the scaffolding.

Then we sealed it with a UV-protected sealer, which protects the mural from fading.

I’ve always loved painting portraits. For this mural, it was really awesome to get back into portrait painting. And then I carried over my signature style of patterning, and juxtaposed that with the realistic portraits.

I worked with probably around 14 artists, from start to finish. And a lot of assistants. I’m so grateful for the team that worked with me, they were amazing.

This project has been my whole life for the last year. My 7-year-old son, Kai, was so patient with me. He was in camp from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., so I could work long hours during the week and then even longer hours working weekends, when he was with his dad. So it’s just been nonstop.

I liked the show, and I found it funny, but to be honest, I don’t watch a lot of TV. But once I knew that I was going to do this mural, my assistant Jasmine Kelly (a die-hard fan) and I played the show in the studio all the time. Then she helped me come up with a spreadsheet of all the characters, their key aspects, and all those notable moments that are in the rectangles.

Michael Scott. It took months. If you see the mural, his expression is neutral, but there’s so much irony in it. There’s almost a smirk, but not really. So getting those subtleties was challenging. One of the longest parts of the process is just bringing things forward, setting things back, accentuating certain shadows, lessening certain shadows, bringing out the light in certain areas. So much time was spent just fine-tuning each portrait.

I had to keep jumping between Michael Scott and Jim Halpert because I was just looking at them for so long, and trying to make all these little adjustments. I’d get to a point where I’m like, “OK, I just need to step away and have fresh eyes.”

Dwight Schrute. He’s so weird.