In the past few months, we have seen a surplus of mural paintings throughout the nation. The movement was sparked by the commission of the BLM street painting, by the Washington D.C. mayor, Murial Browser. Since then, communities across America have taken to the streets with road-marking paint to cement the statement “Black Lives Matter.”
The backlash that followed was quick and to the point. Most people objected that the work was performative, as protestors continued to face police brutality, indifferent to whether or not their streets were marked with the slogan. One point was raised: Despite the fact that most communities that are majority-Black have a Martin Luther King Drive, racism still runs rampant, leaving these communities without resources and the support necessary to allow MLK’s words to have any sort of definitive consequence.
Following suit quickly, Oak Park, Ill., a western suburb of Chicago, commissioned a similar mural. Designed by Franka Del Santo in late June, organized by a group of local teenagers, and led by student Cullen Benson, the mural was painted over the course of several days on a street running perpendicular to the local high school. Diverging from the typical yellow block letters, the mural displays a variety of colors. Benson decided to include a variety of colors because “Oak Park is a colorful community and welcoming community.”
As a local artist myself, I appreciated the work as a creator during the time of a pandemic. Despite this, there is most often a lingering in my mind: Is this mural on the same lines as the “Hate Has No Home Here” yard signs? Are we actually making an impact?
The mural, to me, was not necessarily about making a political statement. I recognize that painting “Black Lives Matter” across a street is not actually doing anything to prevent police brutality or support the lives of Black people in our hometown. Rather, the feeling of coming together as a community is something that I was able to focus on throughout the process of the mural painting. The painting is a symbol of a group of people who wanted to create a piece of art that was able to acknowledge the times that we are living through. Whether or not the piece was actually impactful fell secondhand to supporting a community of artists who had been unable to congregate beforehand due to the pandemic.
Oak Park is a racially diverse community. The community is active and the higher tax rates mean that local institutions are well funded. Despite this, racial tensions still appear, detracting from the welcoming image that the residents of Oak Park are so proud of. Two days after the completion of the BLM street mural, a group of individuals took it upon themselves to vandalize the painting, wiping out the word “Black” and replacing it with “All”.
The history of Oak Park is sprinkled with racist disturbances such as this. In 2018, the high school was found decorated with spray-painted swastikas. The lack of people of color in higher level classes is staggering. As a former student of the public high school, I can attest to the disparity from my perspective. As a member of the swim team, I can only remember one other person of color on my team. As an AP student, I can remember talks discussing how to diversify the classrooms, policies that have yet to be brought to fruition. The village of Oak Park prides itself on its visible stance against racism and its inclusivity. Yet behind this facade of lawn signs, tensions still boil.
A documentary, “America to Me,” documents the racial disparity within the community and the segregation that runs rampant throughout its institutions. (I highly recommend watching the entire documentary to get a full sense of the inner conflicts within Oak Park. It is available on Hulu, Amazon, and Youtube Premium).
In early August, a client approached the Oak Park village with a commission: To construct a mural along the side of the train tracks that run through the town with an image representative of 2020. Included in the request was to create a piece of art that did not linger on anything “too specific,” and was “uplifting and happy.” This directly contrasts with the general experience of 2020.
Artist Carolyn Elaine is responsible for most of the commissioned murals that can be found throughout Oak Park. Under her leadership, a task force of about six to seven people, including myself, met to discuss the design of the mural. Images depicting the phrase “Black Lives Matter” were discarded, under the assumption that these messages were too controversial.
The discussion of the design of the mural was complex: to ignore the protests that have populated the entirety of 2020 is disrespectful to the people on the front lines fighting for equality. Do we choose the design of the Black members of the team, solely to let their voices be heard? Or do we focus on the technical prowess of the art, and use that metric to pick the better design? Where is the line drawn between creating an “uplifting” piece of art, and ignoring our own morals and backstories in order to appease the client? How much is art dependent on the personal experiences behind it and how much does the technique of the artist play into the work?
The process of creating a street mural is relatively simple, and yet extremely laborious. The final design, created by resident artist Atlan Arceo-Witzl, was printed across 3 sheets of 13’x14’ paper. The initial slogan of “BLM” and “all power to all the people” were removed from the design. “No Hate” and “No Fear” were replaced with a heart and a cross. Across the outstretched sheets chunks of ceramic tile were broken up, in accordance with the illustration’s lines. The process leaves blisters on our hands and our knees weak from standing for eight consecutive hours in temperamental autumn weather. Essentially, it is a process of painting-by-number, only with broken tile. After the pieces have all been laid out, they are taped together and moved to the intended wall where they are laid with grout.
Is this mural performative? After the vandalism of the initial BLM street mural, a police officer has been assigned to keep a 24-hour watch over the piece in a move of striking irony. After multiple protests throughout the community, the presence of police officers within the school is still heavy. The racial disparity within the local schools is still blatant. How will the community respond to this second mural?
To ask a group of multi-ethnic artists to create a piece of work that is “uplifting” and to ask them to ignore the events of 2020 is insulting. And yet this rhetoric is common not only throughout Oak Park but throughout most suburbs of major cities. To reflect on one’s unconscious racism is to first admit one is racist in the first place, and this concept is a reality that the residents of Oak Park have yet to truly confront.
