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A STAINED-GLASS JESUS, surrounded by people of all ages and races, makes up part of the Uptown mural.
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Painting peace back into the picture
___By Michael Leathers
___Illinois Baptist
___CHICAGO (ABP)--The corner of Sheridan Road and Sunnyside Avenue on Chicago's north side used to be one of the most dangerous intersections in Uptown Baptist Church's neighborhood.
___Drug houses flourished. Eighteen rival street gangs roamed within a few blocks. Shootings claimed the lives of innocent children caught in crossfire.
___Altho
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A TEAM of volunteers uses scaffolding to reach various points of the giant mural under restoration.
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ugh life still is far from idyllic, the drug houses now have been rehabbed. Children play on the streets, seemingly without a care in the world. Gangs aren't as visible.
___One of the few lingering signs of the neighborhood's violent past is its sidewalks, etched with gang graffiti years ago when the concrete still was wet. An occasional epitaph or the names of gangs is followed by the word "killer." Gangs would add that word to show disrespect for another gang. Offended rivals often would respond with deadly force.
___It all changed because of a mural, according to Brian Bakke, director of community ministries at Uptown Baptist Church.
___The racial-reconciliation mural--a colorful collage stretching along the brick wall of the Unique Thrift Store--first came together in 1995. That's when Bakke and artist Gregory King met with a half-dozen high school students twice a week for three months to brainstorm the design of a Christ-centered mural covering what at the time was a memorial to slain gang members.
___Now, six years later, Baptist volunteers are working feverishly to save the mural, after a local official mistakenly gave another group permission to paint over it. Volunteers from the church, neighborhood and across the nation have been working six days a week since July to uncover and restore the original artwork.
___Beginning from the left, the mural depicts God's creation of the earth, with plants and animals flowing from a starburst in the upper left corner. As eyes travel along the mural, they look up and rest on God's multicolored hand sprinkling silhouettes of different hues gliding through a blue expanse. A Bible verse tells people passing by that God said all this was good.
___The next section reveals humanity's sin--symbolized by a medieval mace thundering down and shattering the earth. The words on the weapon's handle include "hatred," "lust," "racism," "envy." Shards from the broken earth fly to the right, where they recombine into a stained-glass Jesus surrounded by people of all ages and races. Galatians 3:28, painted in bold letters from the top to the bottom of the wall, reminds onlookers that they are "one in
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GREGORY KING restores the section depicting sin's destructive impact on the earth.
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Christ."
___While steadily retouching a section of an earth demolished by sin, King said the mural delivers an important message to this community, where women are abused by their husbands and boyfriends and racial tensions abound.
___King, a Kentucky native who moved to Chicago in 1994 and began working on murals with Uptown Baptist from his first day here, moved to New York last year to further his career as an artist. He's been back in Chicago since July 10, after Bakke called to invite him to be part of the restoration process. The mural appeals to him, he said, because "I've always been interested in doing something beyond a studio experience with my art."
___Other volunteer groups have joined King in the effort. About three dozen teens and young adults were on the job in late July, some perched on rented scaffolds and others seated with legs crossed on the sidewalk as they touched up scratches on the original mural.
___Cans of open paint rested on tarps underneath the shade of five slender-trunked trees. Plastic ice-cube trays and muffin pans held different paint colors at bay in their compartments. Many painters were decked out in bizarre hats and sombreros that protected their faces from the sun and kept them in a jovial mood.
___So far, Uptown Baptist has had two groups, with a combined average of 40 people, on site every workday since July 9. "We've been blessed with all these visiting groups from all over the country," King said.
___Their work is a two-phase project, said Vadim Katznelson, a Chicago art conservator, born and raised in Russia, who has been supervising the restoration. The first step is removing new paint covering the original mural, brick by brick, using acetone. Several multi-gallon buckets of the solvent lurk along the sidewalk. Dipping cotton swabs on sticks--they look like giant Q-Tips--into the acetone, volunteers rub the soaked cotton gently across each brick.
___It's meticulous and patient work. They must remove the top layer of paint while doing as little damage as possible to the original mural underneath. On an average eight-hour day, one person can clean 25 or 30 bricks. Katznelson estimated more than 11,000 bricks in form the mural.
___Most of the first phase was completed by late July, although several patches of paint, including a section obscuring the starburst, were still awaiting an acetone scrub. Jeff Palmberg, youth minister at Kalamazoo Covenant Church in Michigan, wearing his protective mask and rubber gloves, worked gently to uncover that section. He brought seven high-school students to work on the mural.
___Beneath the original mural is another layer of artwork, Bakke said. When Uptown Baptist first prepared to paint the mural in 1995, Bakke sought out the neighborhood's gangs because the wall had been covered with tombstones--a memorial to slain gang members. Receiving their permission was vital, he said, because the painters' lives would have been in danger if the gangs didn't approve.
___Bakke explained the mural's concept to the gangs and that it was going to focus on Jesus Christ, and they gave the church the green light to proceed. When they painted over the tombstones, the shootings stopped immediately. Gang members put out the word that no one was to touch the wall, Bakke said.
___Fifty people were involved in the original painting of the mural, ranging from teenagers to children, from homeless women to members of Uptown Baptist and other churches.
___The restoration has cost about $12,000, Bakke said, and many churches from across the country have sent money to help with the project. The work is scheduled to be completed by Sept. 2, when Uptown Baptist will hold an outdoor worship service and celebration.
___However, there's one more step that Katznelson, the restoration supervisor, wants to see completed before any talk of a celebration gets too serious.
___Once both restoration phases are complete, the whole mural will receive a polyurethane coat to protect it from graffiti and similar damage. If some wayward graffiti mars the mural down the road, it will be an easy task to wipe it off.
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