Mural Design Celebrating Immigration

February 28th was the deadline for submissions for a mural here in my hometown of Denison, IA. Being a military kid, and moving multiple times a year in my twenties, it’s a bizarre thing to call someplace my “hometown”. But we have lived here for five years now, and have no intention of moving, so I guess it’s official. Denison is home.

Back to the mural! The Denison chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and Denison Parks & Rec opened up the mural design contest back in December 2021. The mural will be on the back of the band shell building in Washington Park here in Denison. Washington Park is a great space, where in the warmer months the Farmer’s Market is held and sometimes there is live music (last year my daughters got their first taste of blow-up bounce houses there – and they will NEVER be the same!) The playground there is huge, with all sorts of nooks and crannies to play hide-and-seek in, swings, so many slides, and is basically a parkour dreamland. All of my kids love it, except the teenager, and I’ve already forgiven him for that.

Let's do this!

I had an initial idea of a tessellation, in the style of Escher. Something that started on the left as a butterfly and morphed into a lion on the right. Golds and purples across the wall, how cool would that be?!

Unfortunately, it didn’t meet the contest requirements. There weren’t many, but the mural design should have no more than 5 colors, include the phrase “Immigration is beautiful,” the Denison LULAC name/logo, and finally a pair of monarch butterfly wings (human-sized) ready for photo-ops. Plus, it has to be simple enough for volunteers to paint it.

So I scribbled an idea out. It ended up being the second to last page in a sketchbook I had had for over ten years. It was an emotional experience saying goodbye, especially since just a month or so prior I had to say goodbye to my 17-year old Wacom tablet (and HELLOOOOOO GAOMAN! *wink, wink*.)

Here’s the sketch page:

And from there I refined the idea somewhat:

I was still stuck on the lion, as the Denison school mascots are the Monarchs (lions, not butterflies). I also wanted the wings to be at an angle, and on a lion (because a lion with butterfly wings is AWESOME,) and thought that if you stood just right it would look like the wings were yours, and you were next to a lion, and that lion could very well be your best friend for that one amazing photograph! (Disclaimer, don’t try to make friends with lions. They are wild creatures.)

Reign it in, girl (pun intended.) That’s a cool idea, but would it really work when it’s on the wall? When creating artwork for a specific client, exhibition, or contest, you need to keep the audience in mind. Am I creating this design for me, or am I creating this design for them? Are the judges of the LULAC Mural contest looking for a lion BFF? Probably not.

I was also stuck a little bit on the brick at the bottom of the wall. I was going to include it in the design (aka paint it up!) but I’m part of an anti-modern farmhouse group on Facebook, and there are daily posts there lamenting the painting of beautiful brick. Plus, brick isn’t easy to paint. It was settled, then. The design needed to work WITH the brick.

So when I sat down to actually do the design, digitally, I exchanged my precious lion for a lovely pair of butterfly wings. I also switched the purple to a navy blue (the purple was another reference to the school mascot.) And none of it is on the bricks, but the yellow-ochre and other contrasting colors in the mural complement the tan bricks instead. I really think these changes made the design stronger, and in the end much more coherent.

Here's a flat image of my submitted design:

Original photo from an article in the Denison Bulletin Review.

I also wanted to include images from different stages of the monarch butterfly life – caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult butterfly – to represent different ages/stages of immigration. My main goal was to keep the design artistic (like a large drawing) but simple enough for the volunteers to recreate, and easily seen from further away as well.

The judges will be looking over submissions in March, and hopefully I will be able to announce in the future that my design won! But even if it doesn’t win, I still wanted to share the design I created and the process behind it.

Original photo from an article in the Denison Bulletin Review.

Update: I wasn't chosen to win (although my design was the runner up!) The winner was a young woman named Isabel Gutierrez! Her mural design shows numerous hands releasing butterflies and it's going to look lovely on the back of the band shell in the park! Congratulations Isabel!