This past Sunday… several eras of my life converging…
Bent low, kneeling on the sidewalk, I am braiding green and already brown, long leaves that belong to the fragrant narcissus flowers gone a while ago, leaves now limply on the pavement becoming braids. Across the street, I hear the voice of a woman explaining loudly: “Here is where Bob Blauner lived, and his widow, still here, created this mural…” I turn and see her waving towards the garage describing this landmark to two other women. I am amused and respond slowly rising from the ground: “Yeah, that’s me, I am the widow.” The three, quite surprised, cross the street. The tour guide introduces herself as Kim Voss, from UC Berkeley’s Sociology department. I figure that she probably joined after Bob had taken early retirement in 1992. She lives around the corner on Acacia, taking her two guests on a walk in the neighborhood. Kim has watched the mural come into being. I ask if she has noticed my new addition from last fall: Lives Stolen–Stolen Lives. It took me a long time to figure out how to make this work. The many wrongfully convicted people, innocent, and finally freed after decades of incarceration. Her two guests, a bit younger than her, say: “Thank you,” looking me in the eye. When I mention that a lot of research is in this, all three being academics exclaim appreciatively: “Oh yes!” Kim then turns quiet, and confides: “We know all this, but to stand here and feel in this way, is very meaningful, and moving.” Her tone is deeply sincere, I am touched.
Over time, the 641 Garage Memorial Mural has become a true memorial site to be accessed by the public. My garage doors as part of the commons. Almost three years ago, in June 2020 the memorial mural comes to me as vision, a calling. The pandemic is raging, things cannot go on as usual. Like with so many people in America, when George Floyd is murdered in cold blood by police, a fierce urge to do something meaningful arises in my heart. Uprisings erupt all over the country, and even the whole world. Three mornings later it comes to me that I have these double garage doors, well suited for public display. In my inner eye the exact visual design and lay-out shape up clearly. My previous work – including teaching in prison as a volunteer – especially my films Voices from Inside (1996) and Finding the Gold Within (2014) have prepared me well for the political and sociological realities that inform the memorial. Black people killed by state violence over many past decades, to be remembered and honored with their individual stories. Names, dates, short sentences invoking each life, the tragedies and losses impacting families, communities, and really all of us – if we pay attention. And my late husband’s 1989 book Black Lives, White Lives which I shepherded for two years through re-publication with UC Press (2022) is related to the mural as well.
The process of creating this Mourning Wall took the work and spirit of community. In early July, 2020, I invite friends from all walks of life to become contributors, collaborators, helpers with the research and scaffold, paint and brushes, washing, measuring, sketching, lettering, and photographing. (In another post I will introduce all eight of them individually.) Over the next few months, I schedule us working in small groups, on different days – after all we are in the pandemic. I envision different handwritings on the wall, and at the same time a distinct order, repetition of patterns. While we are working, masked and distanced, a long stream of by-passers, often with their delightful dogs, are part of the process. Painting calligraphy on the doors is very arduous and slow, it needs three layers. We are not on even ground but on a steep incline, or have to climb on the scaffold. The sun becomes too strong when overhead after 12 pm, the shadows and the white of the doors too harsh for the eyes. Most friends can only do a few sessions. A year later, the initial months of attention from press, neighbors, passersby on foot, bicycles, or stopping their car, jumping out, taking stills – all this eventually fades a bit, people are busy again. Then it is just Nicky, an artist and activist, and me painting, more often I am alone. Many wonderful conversations are happening at the garage over the years. I insist that the mural is unfinishable, the murders of Black people by the hands of police still going on in furious succession.
In recent months, the encounters and talks seem to increase again, several people each week stop at the memorial mural. Of course, there are instances of people viewing the mural that I don’t even know about. Sometimes I see them from my living room across the street stopping, pondering. Every time I am out in front though, old timers and newcomers alike, start commenting, asking questions, conversing with me. What a lovely way of creating community, a common sense of caring, mourning, commemorating, celebrating, communing. Increasingly and pointedly, I am feeling the active participation of these passersby. They are contributing to the Gestalt of the memorial – they are taking it in, letting it affect their mood, thinking, and awareness, bringing the themes home to family and friends. Questions are raised, space is given for contemplation. By now the ripple effects have become palpable to me. I could not have anticipated this. The hundreds of hours of work have not only affected us who were painting the tragic stories – in a form of prayer, contemplation or meditation – but the mural has developed its own ongoing life. Thanks to the beholders, it’s become a place, or even destination of its own, a landmark. Exactly what a memorial is supposed to be and do.
In the late fall of 2022, just a few months ago, after another round of intense research and painting on the wrongly convicted finally freed after decades, I finally complete the garage doors by painting in tiny font a last question floating in the last empty panel:
What does being alive mean to you?
Come by, find the question, see it with your own eyes…feel the vibe…commemorate…be part of it! We need change, and justice.
More of the artful b&w photos by Bob Ng (taken in June 2021):
https://blmmuralproject.blogspot.com/
Comments
it’s always interesting to hear the different interactions and responses at the Memorial Mural, from one-time visitors to regular passerbys. if you stand out there – whether we were working on it, or these days talking on the sidewalk or weeding plants – people often seem to rush off quickly. I feel like I’ve witnessed a lot of avoidant moments, like people are afraid to spend time with it, only brief acknowledgements, maybe they don't know what to say. I’ve definitely seen people talk to us and absolutely avoid mentioning the mural at all. so I appreciate hearing stories of people inviting others to see it, standing and reading, taking time with it silently, sharing their thoughts and reflections. i also wonder what it inspires, invokes, changes in people who we don't hear from, especially after 2, coming onto 3 years of it's presence...