EVANSTON MURAL ARTS PROGRAM

2023 SEASON RECAP

As the days grow shorter and the wind grows stronger, so signals the close of our 2023 mural season. If only we could paint all year long! Nonetheless, in our short midwest painting season, Art Encounter’s Evanston Mural Arts Program accomplished a lot this year. With our program’s unique focus on community partnerships, we served local schools, business districts, and residential neighborhoods with dynamic, powerful murals in 2023. Read on to learn more about these projects, and what is on the horizon for the coming year.

Sincerely,

Lea Pinsky & Dustin Harris

Evanston Mural Arts Program Co-Founders

DAWES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

JESS PATTERSON & DAMON LAMAR REED

This past year, we carried out two exciting exterior projects at Dawes Elementary School in Evanston. With support from the Dawes PTA, Foundation 65, and a grant from the Evanston Arts Council, we were able to bring aboard two exceptional artists, Jess Patterson and Damon Lamar Reed, to lead unique projects envisioned by the PTA and Dawes School's art teacher, Meredith Gipple. Both projects began planning in 2022, and were installed over the summer and fall of 2023. Details are below.

First, we carried out a very special assignment to bring public art to the school's garden fence on the west side of the school. Our focus was to celebrate four influential American agriculturalists. We engaged Chicago artist Jess Patterson for her stunning portraiture work to paint eye-catching 4' x 4' panels featuring George Washington Carver, Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta, and Waheenee. These artworks will not only beautify and inspire the gardens they protect, but will also serve as educational tools for teachers at all grade levels as they share the impact of these important historical figures.

The completed four panels, installing the paintings, and the final installation with EMAP's Dustin Harris & Lea Pinsky, and Dawes PTA member Tash Hough

We also oversaw a beautiful year-long project with Dawes School's 5th grade students led by one of Chicago's most prolific muralists, Damon Lamar Reed. In fall of 2022, he engaged in design sessions with the students to create imagery for the mural, focusing on the school's core values of RISE: Responsibility, Integrity, Self-Awareness, and Empathy. Damon then transformed their ideas into a gorgeous design, which he painted with the students on polytab, a secondary substrate that is commonly used for mural projects like this. Damon completed the finishing touches on the mural over the summer and we installed it on the west side of the building this fall!

Damon Lamar Reed painting with Dawes Elementary 5th graders, and the final installation

ALCOTT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

CHERI LEE CHARLTON

Gardens galore! As our program grows, we periodically have the opportunity to work with partners outside of Evanston, such as last year's rewarding project with Alcott Elementary School, a Chicago Public School in Lincoln Square. Engaging with the school's 8th graders, we provided a mural residency that also served as their graduation gift to the school! Artist and gifted teacher Cheri Lee Charlton—a familiar face to EMAP—led this project over the course of the year and created banner murals with the students that celebrate the school's cultivation and care for their native garden. First, the students explored the physical garden itself to choose the flowers and imagery to showcase in the artwork. Cheri then coalesced their ideas into a final design, and painted the banners with the students over the spring, installing in time for graduation. “I hope these murals bring lots of joy and pride to the students!” said Cheri about the project.

Cheri Lee Charlton painting with a group of 8th graders at Alcott Elementary, and the final installation

SOUTH BOULEVARD CTA STATION

DUSTIN HARRIS

In 2023, we provided necessary restoration to a few of our older murals that had aged due to natural and environmental elements. This project gave our artists an exciting opportunity not only to refresh their older pieces, but to propose enhancements should they choose. EMAP's co-founder Dustin Harris, who originally painted his mural entitled "Portal" at the South Boulevard CTA station, decided to make a few changes to his piece, and the result is quite powerful! Not only did he refresh the entire mural with new paint, he also made some adjustments to the color gradations, created more pronounced shadows in the outlines, and deepened the optical illusion in the center of the piece. These elements enhance the suggested portal, "a fourth dimensional point of entry to a destination of positive energy as imagined by the viewer," as described by Harris. The restoration has brought great joy to commuters and residents who live nearby.

Several of the 25 different paint colors used in Dustin Harris's piece, and the final installation

DOWNTOWN EVANSTON

JEFF ZIMMERMANN

When we asked Jeff Zimmermann to restore his fading mural on Church Street, he offered instead to create an entirely new mural for the site. With support from Downtown Evanston, we were able to manifest this vision. He painted several pieces of the mural off site on polytab, then installed them on the wall. Jeff brought his signature skill of offering larger-than-life, photorealistic renderings of everyday neighborhood residents, combined with graphic and finely-rendered inanimate objects, and other colorful design features. As he told Evanston Now in their recent article Downtown Mural Gets Updated, the mural is not a linear narrative. "Each person, animal, or item can be taken on its own, and can also impact a viewer differently than it did the person who created them." We hope viewers will have fun discovering the possible meaning of the images for themselves, and see how it can even change over time!

Jeff Zimmermann in the process of installing his pre-painted pieces, and the completed installation

WHAT'S NEXT?

UPCOMING EMAP PROJECTS

There are more exciting projects on the horizon. First, Anthony Lewellen will also be restoring his Downtown Evanston mural across from Jeff Zimmermann's piece on Church Street. A few blocks away, we will be bringing our Evanston Women's History Mural to life in Spring 2024. And we also have at least three more projects in the works for 2024, with more specific announcements coming soon. It is going to be a great year!

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Art Encounter's mission is to educate, empower, and connect people of all ages and backgrounds through interactive encounters with art. We take members and the general public into artist studios and private collections, leading conversations that connect them with the art and with one another. Our outreach programs bring enriching art experiences to ten times as many, in public schools and in senior residences. And our murals transform the walls and lives of the whole community.