PHOTOS: Muskego Way residents create community-engaged mural | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Adam Carr
July 30, 2020
Community artist Tia Richardson and her community collaborators did not let the pandemic stop them from finishing the third in a series of murals that stretch over 200 feet along West Forest Home Avenue.
Richardson and a team of eight youth artist interns spent a month collaborating to create the mural, which is named “Together as one heart.”
The team worked throughout July and are celebrating the mural’s completion with a “drive-through car parade” at 6 p.m. Thursday at Forest Home Avenue School, 1516 W. Forest Home Ave.
During the painting process, the group wore masks and practiced social distancing.
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The first two sections of the mural were completed in 2018 (named “Growing gateways to unity”) and 2019 (named “Nurturing the roots of life within the community”), with hundreds of Muskego Way residents participating in the community design workshops.
The stretch of murals is located on the 1300 block of Forest Home Avenue, on the northwest wall of a building that houses an El Rey supermarket and was once a Sears department store.
Richardson also painted a collaborative mural in the adjacent Butterfly Park in 2016.
The project is a collaboration of Richardson, Milwaukee Christian Center and Muskego Way Forward Initiative, with financial support from MPS Partnership for the Arts and Humanities, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the City of Milwaukee Office of Violence Prevention.