Thank you so much to everyone who made this mural possible, especially Phung Huynh and our club advisor and former school principal Ms. Anderson for supporting us every step of this process. Additionally, we appreciate all the help and encouragement we have received from the Public Art Commission, our parents, other members of the SPHS and South Pasadena community, and everyone who so generously funded and/or assisted with the painting of this mural. Another shoutout goes to Cat Flores, who participated in much of the mural process with us and helped us get to where we are today. We are greatly indebted to London, Fahren, and all the BLM protestors on the ground fighting for cultural and political anti-racist change. Your efforts inspired this mural. Finally, we give a giant thank you to our artist, Zach Brown, for doing such an incredible job and making this journey so fun, meaningful, and positive for all of us.
Creating this mural took a tremendous amount of effort and resiliency, and we want to take a moment to reflect on the journey. Each member of our five-person team shared their thoughts on the process below.
Lulu Talesnick: [insert reflection once the mural is completed]
Maya Turun: [insert reflection once the mural is completed]
Khalil Murdock: [insert reflection once the mural is completed]
Noah Kuhn: [insert reflection once the mural is completed]
Alexa Morales: [insert reflection once the mural is completed]
For the sake of transparency and thoroughness, we wanted to highlight some of the documents we've created along the way. Our Request for Proposals (RFP) was distributed to the local arts community to attract submissions for a professional artist to design the mural. That process yielded Zach Brown, who we contracted with for both the designing and painting of the mural. We have presented to the Public Arts Commission a total of five times, before finally getting a design approved in September 2021. We also presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission to gain permission to paint on our chosen wall, as well as visited the City Council twice to gain conditional and then final approval for the project. [CHANGE DEPENDING ON OUR FINAL LOCATION] A summary of our work on the BLM mural can be found here.