Critical Inquiry | Social Justice Advocacy | Taylor A. Curtis You Must Act

Artwork in the Twin Cities Community

This piece titled: Artwork in the Twin Cities Community: Exploring the Midway Murals, enhances my studies as a Social Justice major by discussing artwork in communities that contribute to my concentration of gender, race, and sexuality.

If you haven’t heard of the Midway Murals that line the streets of the Hamline-Midway neighborhood, now is the time you do. The project consists of four separate murals that each tells their individual story and provides a scenic view as regulars, visitors, and community members’ drive down Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hamline-Midway Murals promote inclusion, culture, and overall enhance the meaning of a community. They are considered a dream come true, as project manager, Jonathan Oppenheimer would describe his goals of "trying to find a way to build a sense of identity and connectedness between the people who live here, the folks who work here, go to school here,” (Oppenheimer, 2015). Jonathan was inspired by the sense of community that this project could offer.

Snelling Avenue is a highly populated, often traveled street that consists of many diverse groups. While scoping out Snelling Avenue you might run into students, as Snelling is Hamline University’s home, families, young individuals, old individuals, people holding up cardboard signs asking for money and food, workers, and professors. The community is home to different immigrant groups, business owners, long-time residents, and even a brand new multi-million dollar soccer stadium. How can all of these groups be intersected at once, in one section of one of the largest cities in Minnesota? In terms of creating a sense of relation and community for each individual who passed through, Jonathan believed that “public art really seemed like a great way to do that, right on Snelling Avenue,” (Oppenheimer, 2015). Each of these murals are representations of many artists’ and community members’ work. Artwork and expression through art are important to a community as each piece or mural gives members of the community something to admire, connect with, and feel a part of. Art expressions like the Midway Murals are ideal to have in diverse areas as artwork stands out, making the messages these murals display hard to miss. In order to show these messages and how street art enhances a sense of community, brings individuals of multiple cultures together, and builds a sense of unity, particular artists such as Lori Greene and Greta Mclain and their murals shall be discussed. Not only do their murals, and the messages they send connect the individuals who drive down Snelling Avenue every day, but they also unites other members of the community like women, immigrants, and people of different races, genders, and sexualities.

Before moving on to the first mural, an important person to recognize is Lori

Greene, a contributor to the project, whose mural will be discussed later on, not

only for her connection to this community, but how that plays a role in her

importance to the Hamline Midway Mural Project. In her own application to be

a part of this project she talks about how she knew that the project would

“make the neighborhood feel different. I believe Greene’s project will make

people stop and look and pay attention, rather than just driving through,”

(Greene, 2015). In terms of community, Lori has made a constant effort to be a

part of something bigger than her and to truly define what that means. She

supports this as she discusses her artwork, the different groups she works with,

and her intentions behind her work. Lori expresses how the work she “creates are both with and for the community,” (Greene, 2016). Greene has worked with mosaic art and considers herself a mosaic artist. She owns her own studio where she completes her artwork but also offers this open space for members of the community to make their own art. To further explain the importance of community to Greene she describes how she is “a public artist is…I go to other community spaces and work with people to create art. Sometimes we work on the design together and I make the art. Sometimes I create the design and we work on the art together or it's a little of both,” (Greene, 2016). She finds artwork within the community and community within the artwork, which makes her a necessity to Oppenheimer’s project and goal.

Another artist to recognize is Greta Mclain and how her mural that she contributed to the Midway Murals brought color, culture, and personal connection to the main goal of this project. Her mural called “Braided,” is located on the side of a beauty salon, and offers a chance for women of the Snelling Midway community to embrace their cultural backgrounds. The piece shows two women, one braiding the other’s hair, which exemplifies care and beauty. The idea behind care and beauty is stereotypically a female social construct, which could conclude why this mural is appealing and meaningful to women of the area. Not only does this mural contain meaning, it also catches your eye. Braided includes many vibrant colors, textures, and patterns throughout the artwork of a strong, powerful braid and Mclain designed it this way to show different cultural groups in the community.

On The University of St. Thomas’ website on environmental and geography studies that was created for the Midway Mural project, Mclain expresses that “these strands reflect our immigrant roots and our ability to embrace our unique cultural backgrounds while forming crucial community bonds,” (Mclain, 2015). Each of the braided stands is there to represent different sections

of a community representing race, friendships, belongings, sexualities, genders, or education and showing that they can all bond together as one. By creating the mural with such intentions, any type of audience is able to connect with and find meaning in the mural. All together this mural mainly serves and can be related to by women as the mural’s finishing touch of hands “represent the intergenerational connections in women’s experiences, which have numerous commonalities among the diverse cultures throughout the world,” (Mclain, 2015). This serves as a significant piece to the Midway Murals because that is precisely what the murals are there for. Oppenheimer knew what his intentions were during the upbringing of this project and “Braided” provides a convincing visual of his goal to enhance a community.

In another essential piece of the Midway Murals, cultural bonds, diversity, and values are much appreciated through Lori Greene’s mural “Berbere”. In a live broadcast, Greene expresses how “she likes the idea of putting things back together again, using broken pieces and this has a lot to do with the way most of us are broken in some way in our life and are trying to put ourselves together in a new fashion,” (Greene, 2015). In the live broadcast Greene talks about how she fell into this practice and how her experiences have inspired her goal of putting pieces back together as they have previously fallen apart.

In order for Greene to complete a piece of artwork, she uses a process that contains a lot of pattern and textile imagery in her work because “it is old and there are messages in the weavings that are done,” (Greene, 2015). The reason for her choice of textile imagery is because they are old and women hid messages in these for each other about planting cycles, moon cycles fertility, the land; she wants that all to continue. She talks about how these textiles, when a war occurs, how they are taken away from these certain individuals, especially women, and how she wants their story to still remain. This is important not only for women, but for anyone in the community to be able to have a place to connect with their story. Greene’s mural is a wonderful example of how Snelling can provide a space for the community to gather or reflect on their individuality and experiences. Recognizing the importance of bringing a community together is crucial because in order to do so, there has to be some sort of comfort and Greene’s intentions with “Berbere” absolutely offers that sense of inclusivity to others within the community.

Together, Lori Greene and Greta Mclain have created two separate murals that contain a magnitude of beauty as “ Traversing Snelling Avenue is a more vibrant, colorful and artistic experience than ever before,”(Hamline Midway Coalition, 2015). Their expression allows for people in the Hamline-Midway community to find a sense of connection to their surroundings through art. On Hamline- Midway Coalition, the project highly reflects on “community engagement” by sharing reviews such as “the Midway Murals project brought new life to one of the busiest routes”, and “This project stands as both a testament to the vibrancy, diversity and life of our community, as well as an enduring reminder of the powerful impact neighbors can have on our community when we work together, and invest in our collective future,”(Hamline-Midway Coalition). One of the main goals of the Midway Murals Project is to engage, connect, and gather as a community. The street art that lines Snelling Avenue provides this type of environment for the community and presents welcoming, inclusive energy to those who pass through the area each day.