The Better World Mural
Artists collaborate to make sustainability message at NW studio.
“Often, when we think about the problems facing the world, they seem insurmountable,” muses Val Gonzalez, executive director of Terra Studios of Fayetteville. “We feel hopeless about having any impact on global issues. But we truly can do our part.
“In fact, many of the biggest issues the world faces are being addressed by a handful of individuals who care. We cannot do it all, but we can all do something.”
With a mission of “using art to create a better world,” the “something” Terra Studios decided to do was unveiled April 13. “The Better World Mural” includes the work of 19 artists in an array of 4-by-4foot panels.
“Last year at the Compassion Fayetteville Partners Celebration,
we heard Marilyn Turkovich, the director for the Charter for Compassion International, speak,” Gonzalez explains. “During her presentation, she talked about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and we were inspired.
“So we came up with the idea of a collaborative project where each of the goals would be de
picted by a different artist to create a mural that would be permanently installed at Terra Studios.”
Eighteen of the mural’s 21 panels express a goal for a better world, and each of them is the work of a different artist; Drew Gentle and Cathrin Yoder collaborated on the 17th panel, Partnerships. Three other panels explain the charter and salute sponsors.
“At first, we thought we would have a very formal process for choosing artists,” Gonzalez says. “However, as soon as we told a few of our artist friends about the project, they were volunteering and choosing their preferred goal. The word spread, [and] all the panels were taken in short order.”
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
“The very first goal to be taken was the one about climate action,” Gonzalez says. “Susan Crabtree, a scenic artist and neighbor, was over for dinner, and when we showed her the concept, she said, ‘I’m in. I want this one!’ And that’s pretty much how it all fell into place.”
The size and scope of the project was daunting for many of the artists, but perhaps none more than for Susan Idlet, who ordinarily works in colored pencils.
Jamie Ulick, president of the Terra Studios Board, asked her to participate.
“I told him I was not a painter. He said he was pretty sure I would be able to figure it out, so I agreed,” says Idlet, who moved to Northwest Arkansas in 1994, following her brother, Ezra Idlet, of Trout Fishing in America and his family from Houston.
Each artist worked with a 4-by-4 sign board donated by City Lumber Co. and painted with a high-grade exterior paint donated by Sherwin-Williams of Fayetteville.
“The 4-foot by 4-foot white panel stared at me for two months before I was brave enough to start,” Idlet says. “I talked to lots of other painters, getting advice, tips, etc. I bought the stuff. And Jamie was right. I figured it out.”
Idlet selected “compassion” as her theme.
“I have painted a cozy quilt with some welcoming hands — there to wrap you up in the warmth of love and compassion. I hope folks will kind of feel the hug I’m sending out,” she says.
Although Idlet has been a working artist for only three years, she says as a child her ambition was to make art.
“We lived in Baltimore, and my mother rented our third floor to students of the Maryland Institute of Art,” she recalls. “I knew then that I would grow up to become an ‘abstract artist’ — even then I understood the difference. I would live in Greenwich Village, in an attic apartment, dress all in black, drink lots of coffee and smoke lots of cigarettes — and make art. Art was my ‘thing’ — even won a scholarship to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston — but I dropped it all at age 15. That was 1970, and I jumped on the hippie wagon and had too much fun to spend time on art.”
Returning to her first love makes Idlet feel like “I’ve been given a huge gift of joy.”
Jaquita Ball of Red Cat Art, who has always pursued her artistic passion, now works in encaustic, acrylic, pastel, pen/ink, oil, graphite and watercolor, and her art generally has an environmental or animal welfare theme.
“No Hunger was my mural choice. … so as I worked and sketched this panel about hunger, I wondered how I could relate to the hunger issue,” she says. “It was then I realized how connected all these issues are. A bounty of food for all, as depicted in my bouquet of food, can only happen when other issues are also addressed, such as climate change, the environment, social justice, clean water, compassion for all. In turn, addressing food shortages and feeding our world, this is what provides the sustenance we need to address our challenges — therefore, a bouquet of healthy food for a healthy world.”
Next, she says, she is “working on expanding my atmospheric abstract series that focuses on the environmental issues of climate change and water conservation.”
Obed Ibrahim Gonzalez — no relation to Val — chose “education” as his theme. He says it was a natural choice for him, in more ways than one.
“While many are familiar with STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), I wanted to base the theme of my mural on STEAM which includes an ‘A’ for art as the missing component to a truly holistic education. In terms of creating a ‘Better World,’ the subject I choose to emphasize the different sections corresponding to the letters of STEAM was nature itself,” he says.
“I believe that students need to be taught more about the natural world around them, locally and globally, and the all too real effects of climate change that they are already facing today.
“The purpose of the mural is to educate folks about the Sustainable Development Goals and to inspire them to take action,” Gonzalez says. “We hope folks will be inspired to act, whether in individual ways or by getting involved in their local communities’ efforts to address any of the global goals.”