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 “Two years after George Floyd’s murder, the street art created during the summer’s uprising – and the hope it inspired – is fading away.” 

Last week, Charles Blow wrote a wonderful NYT piece for May 25, 2022, with photos of murals in various cities around the US: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/20/opinion/blm-george-floyd-mural.html 

 

(Photo by Bob Ng, June 2021)

End of May 2020 – in an immediate and irrepressible response – I conceived of and designed the 641 Garage Memorial Mural on my double garage doors – I wanted it to become a permanent exhibit and reminder. Like so many others in the uprisings, I felt compelled to put myself/my body on the line. The nightly vision for the memorial project’s lay-out and content was clear, as well as the use my own garage doors as a public installation. And for this, I had to first start delving deep into the huge hole of painful and seemingly endless hours of researching the names & lives of the countless Black victims of police shootings. I envisioned to honor them as much as possible in their full humanity and uniqueness, including women, trans people and men, going back in time as well. Then I called on friends to help with painting, and researching. Research was exhausting – it was just demoralizing that information about the individuals’ lives, not just deaths, was so hard to find. Brushes, paint, canvas, a scaffold, all started to manifest, as well as a constant flow of passersby, strangers, neighbors, dogs. The pandemic made people walk, and bicycle the streets up to Tilden Park. Community in painting, sharing and commemorating. 

 

(Photo by Renate, June 2020, Christopher and Karina on scaffold)

And this way, over months, a permanent contribution to the efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement manifested. A wall of remembrance and mourning, of honoring and keeping memory alive, asking for justice and change. A mural that can live on for a long time, especially since in American culture forgetting is happening so fast. The process of sketching and painting is slow, meditative, three layers of paint, using the brush, feeling the sorrow of stolen lives – the terror and inequalities wounding and affecting all around. The mural is still in-process, just as the mourning, and the shootings… 

 

 (Photo by Nicky, December 2020)

A year later, in June 2021, my cello teacher Bob Ng took a series of beautiful b&w art photos and set up this blog for me (his stills are in several entries). To my surprise, I took to writing with delight about life and meaning, squirrels and memories... In the blog’s short entries – especially the earlier ones from June to August 2021 – you can read about the gestation of the mural as a community affair, the unsolicited press coverage, encounters when painting by myself, updates on trials, and much more. 

https://karinalandriver.blogspot.com/search/label/memorialmural 

Thank you, Nicky, Bob, Tomye, Laura, Jonas, Christopher & Renate, David, and others, for your participation in various ways… 


 More of Bob's Memorial Mural photos: https://blmmuralproject.blogspot.com/

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