Same Old Paradise, a mural painted by Alexis Smith, was commissioned by Brooklyn Museum in 1987 as a temporary installation and then remained rolled-up for thirty years. Alexis worked with Lucia Vinograd to develop the five-point perspective of the orange grove and the colors in the scales of the snake that turned into a paved road. Alexis loved to drive, and when you drive and look out the window you are experiencing something akin to her work—an ongoing visual collage. You see one thing after another. Alexis Smith also had become fascinated with the idea that instead of having paradise be a place, paradise might be a state of mind. (#37863)