Filmmaker and artist Murray “Walletmoth” Siple channels skate culture, adaptive surfing and life on society’s edges into paintings that double as vibrant survival stories.
words :: Feet Banks // Images courtesy Murray Siple
“I was partying a lot in the 2000s and I went to get a haircut,” says Murray Siple. “It was a Monday, I go to pay and I guess I had spent all my money on the weekend. There was no money; I opened my wallet and a moth flew out. The hairstylist laughed and told me that was my new name: Walletmoth. People always mispronounce my last name anyhow, so when I started painting I figured, sure—Walletmoth sounds dope.”
Let the record show: Murray’s surname is pronounced “Sipe-ul” not “Sipple.” And really he’s a filmmaker, first and foremost. Painting? It kind of happened by accident.
“I was in Mexico for six months,” the 56-year-old ex-skater/snowboarder says. “I couldn’t get funding for another film, so I took six months and holed up in a little beach town to try and write a book. But 90 pages in I just couldn’t sit there anymore, not with Mexico going on right outside. I had always been into drawing, so when I got bored I asked my Airbnb host if I could paint a mural on the wall of the garage.”
As a filmmaker, Murray started his career shooting skateboarding and skiing with his buddies in Kamloops, BC. He put those skills to further use after moving to Whistler in the early 1990s, directing and shooting four snowboard films (Cascadia is a classic). In October of 1996, Murray was the passenger in a car accident that left him as a C6–C7 quadriplegic. With no use of his legs and limited wrist, bicep and finger control, Mur’s snowboarding days were over. But his filmmaking days were not.
“A director sits in a chair anyhow, right?” he says. In 2008, Murray directed Carts of Darkness, a National Film Board movie about homeless men who find joy in simple living and racing their bottle-collecting shopping carts down the steep hilly streets of North Vancouver. A smash hit, the film reconnected Murray with the adrenaline and speed of his skate/snowboard days and allowed him an insider’s look into a world where few others would be welcomed.
“I’m trying to find the things that others are not paying attention to,” Murray says. “Often those can be the dark things—people will be taking a picture of a sunset and the waves and I’m wondering why this giant garbage fire is burning over here.”
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“I’m trying to find the things that others are not paying attention to.”
Which brings us back to Mexico, painting a mural as a chance to get outside and procrastinate writing a book. A friend saw a photo of Murray’s mural on Instagram and implored him to start painting canvases so he could bring them back home to BC.
“I couldn’t buy art canvasses in a tiny town in Mexico,” Mur says. “Or proper paint. I had to just use house paint.”
For canvasses he started collecting old election signs from walls around town. “I painted them all black to hide what they were,” he says. “And that became part of my style. I would paint things that were around me. A bull getting butchered in the street in front of a vegetarian restaurant, lots of skulls, and my first painting was of the Virgin of Guadalupe [Mexico’s Virgin Mary]. I liked that hooded shape, that cloak. It reminded me of my skater and snowboard friends wearing hoodies. I painted that figure for the next six years.”
About 20 pieces into his new passion, Murray realized there’s no such thing as free canvasses. “Those elections signs, they actually had been left there to let people know which region had voted for which cartel. I had 20 huge black canvasses in my garage, the exact same size, and people walking by every day. Plus, I’d hired homeless guys to go collect signs for me. So I peaced out of there and came home.”
“I would paint things that were around me. A bull getting butchered in the street in front of a vegetarian restaurant, lots of skulls…”
Back home in BC, Murray applied for grant funding as a painter. “I felt like if no one wants to make films I better keep painting to tell these stories and express myself,” he says. The grants were approved and Murray set to work. He currently has more than 100 completed canvasses and has been commissioned for large murals celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Whistler Skatepark and the recent relaunch of iconic Canadian snow/skate/surf brand Westbeach. After falling in love with adaptive surfing, Murray’s also scored live painting gigs at surf events around the globe.
“That was my way into the sport,” he says. “It gets me access to these incredible volunteers who help me in and out of the water. I get to be there with the community and be a part of the event without competing. It reminded me of my old days heliboarding and getting to be in the mountains as the filmer.”
After falling in love with adaptive surfing, Murray’s also scored live painting gigs at surf events around the globe.
Murray adds that he thinks the adaptive surfing community and the sport itself has also lifted a bit of the darkness out of his art. “I’ve been trying to involve more of my physical abilities back into the paintings. I do want to show myself and other adaptive sport athletes. The primary goal is not to sell paintings, it’s to show my story. This disability is pretty severe—quadriplegic. People think I live with a nurse and don’t do very much, so I’m fighting to do as much as I can: surf, travel, make films, make art. I want to tell that story. The paintings are personal documents of me progressing through life. Maybe some people will realize that a person with a disability is not what they expected. There are stories out there that no one has done. So I’m doing it.”
