Community mural
I was invited out to a fantastic event held by a group in San Francisco that commissioned a piece from me. While there, I hosted a station where anyone in the community could add their own part to a separate mural.
St. Anthony's Foundation
"A forum for good"
In these photos, you can see the mural I was commissioned to do being used in their branding for the event, and the piece itself featured inside the church it was held in front of. On the panels outside, I guided forum attendees in creating a portrait of themselves with a halo to help them realize we can all be saints! It was also powerful to see all the faces of the community together on these canvases, and for them to feel that they are a part of something. I prepped these boards by stenciling face shapes and haloes in different colors, and they were able to access paints on small tables throughout the area. Community members stopping by the organization for the services they rely on, or people who were simply walking through (including a class of school students) were able to add their faces as well! It was incredible to see how differently they all turned out and what folks chose to include, and the conversations I had with participants about the activity and their ideas about community and sainthood were so fascinating.
NOTE: This event and these pieces were written about and featured in the book Religion and the American West by Jessica Lauren Nelson (University of New Mexico Press, 2023) pages 172-173. Link to the book here.
