Mural project creating discussion on Greensboro’s health

story and photo by Eric Ginsburg

As she finished up her time with AmeriCorps at the Greensboro Children’s Museum last summer, Kat Siladi wanted to help create a mural but ran out of time.

Now she works as a garden educator and volunteer at the Edible Schoolyard at the museum. While gardening there last month with friend Alyzza Callahan, they realized their shared interest in the mural idea and decided to go for it.

Siladi had thought the idea was lost, and Callahan considered hers a pipedream.

“We decided to act on it,” Callahan said. “Kat had outlined a plan she wanted to do last summer and we used that as a model.”

Since then, the project has taken off. The duo, with help from a number of volunteers, plan to interview 500 people around the city by the end of the month about what they think would make a healthier Greensboro. Then, they’ll take the main trends from the responses and compile them for muralist Kathleen Kennedy.

During May, Kennedy will create an outline for the mural, which will be on the 30-foot retaining wall at the edge of the Edible Schoolyard along Lindsay Street. The wall varies in height, reaching over six feet tall in some places.

In June, they’ll bring out the paint and invite community members to help fill in the outline. They hope to hold a celebratory block party in July to celebrate the mural’s completion.

“There’s definitely been an evolution [of the project],” Siladi said. “The mural is being painted to open up conversations in the community about health, to increase awareness about local projects and to have public art in a highly public walkway.”

Siladi started thinking about a mural from talking to kids at the museum last summer. Judy Baca’s “Great Wall of LA,” a 2,754 foot-long mural of LA’s history, and the Maine-based Beehive Collective also inspired her.

Siladi already had permission for the mural from last summer. She said the mural can serve as a visual blueprint for people’s vision for the city.

“There are many ways art can be incorporated into a community,” said Siladi. “You can’t really make social change unless you have a vision.”

With over 100 interviews already completed, Siladi and Callahan say some trends are already starting to emerge. Increased public transportation options, such as bike lanes, has come up repeatedly. Interviewees also say they want more public outdoor spaces like parks, increased local food production and access to it, and more interaction across different community lines.

“People’s minds go straight to how they move their bodies and what goes into them,” Siladi said.

A number of people said they’d never thought about it before. Callahan says this is part of the point — to push people to think about it and probe them to be part of creating their vision.

“Part of the purpose of the mural is to map where we can go,” Callahan said. “Being able to present that question is planting the seed of the idea we can improve the city. We can make a change — it doesn’t have to be static.”

They’ve been interviewing people all over the city who are riding the bus, attending First Friday or just walking around downtown. In the next few weeks, Siladi will be interviewing more than 100 kids of all ages who will be visiting the Edible Schoolyard from Glenhaven, Avalon, and Grace Community Church’s tutoring program.

They aim to survey as diverse a sample of the population as possible, a mix between people they already know and would interact with to complete strangers around town.

Callahan and Siladi have applied for a handful of grants to help them secure the $2,500 they think they’ll need for supplies and to pay Kennedy an artist fee, and they’re hopeful that they’ll receive one by the end of the month. Even if they aren’t awarded a grant, they have a backup fundraising plan to hold benefit events and to use the fundraising website Kickstarter.

“There are lots of things that could make a better Greensboro, but I also definitely like Greensboro now and that’s why I’m invested in this project,” said Callahan.

After the mural is completed, Siladi and Callahan say the door is wide open.

“There are lots of possibilities — it’s exciting,” Callahan said. “We’re still trying to figure out what the legacy of this project is.”

But they have a number of ideas. Callahan said the data they collect could be used by other projects, and possibly presented to city council members. Both would like to see the healthy mural project spawn other public art around the city, and Siladi said some people have already expressed interest in creating murals elsewhere.

“There’s been talk of several different projects,” said Siladi.

With countless empty walls around town, it seems there would be no shortage of potential sites and that the only missing ingredients are a few dedicated people and permission to paint.

More information is available on their new website or on their Facebook page. They can be reached at gsomurals@gmail.com.