Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Message on wall hits the mark
For Oakland Park commuters, a 100-foot mural with 1 word to live by: ‘Together’
To Oakland Park Boulevard commuters anxious and confused by modern life, Lori Pratico has a solution — and she wants a 100-foot word with you.
If all goes according to plan this weekend, the Fort Lauderdale artist will finish a 100-foot-long mural on the busy thoroughfare in east Broward County, brightening the wall of a spa called BeWell with a restorative, one-word declaration in 12-foot-tall letters: “Together.”
“It’s about everyone valuing each other. Forget about what the president’s doing, forget about what government’s doing. In our own communities, we all play a role,” Pratico says. “When we look at each other as if that role has value, then it lifts us up.”
Located on the back of the spa at 1699 E. Oakland Park Blvd., the mural is next to a grassy, empty lot that offers an unobstructed view for eastbound traffic headed toward Fort Lauderdale beach and adjacent neighborhoods.
The eight characters in the word “Together,” which sway with a soft rainbow effect, are interspersed with 10 faces, multicultural and intentionally unidentifiable. Several look back at the viewer, expectantly.
“My whole point was that anyone who looked at the wall was going to be able to see themselves in this mural,” says Pratico, who began work on the wall on June 27. She typically started painting at 7 a.m. each day, with morning runners routinely saluting her with a thumbs-up.
A longtime Broward County resident who has been a resident artist at Art Serve and the Coral Springs Museum of Art, Pratico has done about two dozen murals across South Florida, including at hot spots such as Fort Lauderdale’s Rhythm & Vine, celebrity chef Ralph Pagano’s Naked Taco in Coconut Creek and Sistrunk Marketplace and Brewery.
Her top painting passion, however, is a nationwide, nonprofit mural project called Girl Noticed,
which celebrates the unique and under-appreciated potential of women, including a large work in the lobby at ArtServe. Pratico began Girl Noticed in 2015, has completed more than three dozen walls in 15 states and plans to do murals in all 50 states.
Fittingly, Pratico has been helped on “Together” by two of her young art students, sisters Yana and Vera Danzig. Yana, 14, is preparing for her freshman year of high school at American Heritage in Plantation, and Vera, 10, is a student at Fox Trail Elementary School in Davie.
“With everything that’s going on in the world, it’s really important to know that we’re all in this together,” Yana says. “This mural represents people of all different races and genders, and it’s important to remember that no matter who you are, we’re all experiencing the same things right now.”
Both girls acknowledged that painting in public on such a high-profile project was intimidating, but also a confidence builder.
“It’s been a really great experience,” Yana says.
The “Together” mural is Pratico’s largest work to date, but no cause for stress: The self-taught artist, raised in a conservative, blue-collar neighborhood in Philadelphia, began her career as a 19-year-old billboard painter.
To take on the job, Pratico hit pause on her professional mural work — robust in recent weeks with restaurants and other businesses seeking a new look as part of reopening plans.
“I took two weeks out of my work, not getting paid, because as artists our art is our voice. I go home every day after work and I put the television on and I see the same thing over and over and over again, except it’s worse. Every day it’s a little worse,” she says. “And I was like, I want to say something, and my most powerful voice comes through my art.”
“[The mural] is saying, put politics aside, put everything else aside. We must come together somehow, and start listening to each other and start valuing each other, no matter what side of the coin you’re on. This constant bickering is sad. It makes me sad,” Pratico says.
For more information, visit GirlNoticed.org.