This week I decided to add some of my earlier projects to my blog.
It started out innocently enough as I scanned old newspaper articles and posted them.
Then as I was writing this blog post, I realized this mural has so much more significance for today than I first realized.
and then I got on my high horse.
1996...was the year of the mural.
220 years earlier July 4th, 1776 ---
this happened:
The colonies signed the declaration of Independence.
Freedom.
About this mural project
I painted this mural on a wall on a blank boring cinder -block wall in front of the library at an elementary school where the kids stood for a long period of time each day waiting to go to lunch and bathroom. I transformed the space with color and tiny stories, painted a castle wall which consisted of a collection of story book themes, little mice, and story creatures as well as life size figures. Jack In The Bean Stalk climbed a vine that went 12 foot up and over the door, and I painted a big window that you could look in and see a life size Grandfather reading to his grand kids. It was innocent, colorful and professional and I donated the paint and all my time, it was 1996. The new kindergarten kids and parents each fall would turn the corner and look up to see the height of it for the first time and pause to talk and smile.
The newspaper came and took a photo of me at the door of the library. I called this mural:
"Guarding Knowledge"
Guarding books, ideas, thoughts and learning.
Yes
I painted a women guard at the library door. She had a gun, she also had a book. Back then every high school farmer kid had a gun rack in the cab of his truck on the school campus in the parking lot.
But it was 1996 so no one was bothered that there was a guard at the library door, guarding the books, and our rights to them, our rights to protect and believe what we choose to believe.
The mural stayed on the walls of that elementary school and looked as fresh as the day I painted it for twenty five years. One summer day the teachers called me in a panic to tell me that the new principal, fresh out of college, wanted the mural covered with a coat of institution beige. The teachers wanted me to intervene. I listened to their concerns and said "Look, I am pleased the mural stayed on the wall as long as it did, but I will talk to her." I made an appointment with the small young principal to ask if there was anything I could do to the mural to please her. I did not mention "The Guard" and she did not either but I suspected that "The Guard" was the problem. I volunteered to paint what ever she wanted. I volunteered to create something, anything, for the children so they could experience art.
She said, " No, I don't want anything on the walls."
I want to paint the walls beige.
I said, "Okay."
The books, ideas, thoughts, creativity and learning that the library represented
are not protected now.
There is no Guard.
She covered the colors. The stories and ideas.
The walls are institutional beige.
The school is a prison with no guards.
It is the opinion of this artist that "The Guards" are necessary, and some things need to be guarded.
____________________________
Our children's minds should be guarded, they should be allowed freedom of thought, freedom to choose and follow a religion, freedom from being taught by government institutions what to say, think, or do.
Freedom from "thought police" word laws, research and internet censorship.
Freedom to know history as it was in truth, not as it is being rewritten with falsehoods.
Access to the news and events of today with facts only, not opinions.
