Courtesy of Painting for Peace in Ferguson
One year and one day ago, artists came to Ferguson to paint over the boards on damaged businesses. Now, artists are returning to continue what they started.
If you only watched nighttime news coverage one year ago today of the riots that erupted here after a grand jury voted not to indict a Ferguson Police officer for shooting an unarmed black teenager, you mostly saw destruction—fires, thrown rocks, tear gas, broken glass.
But as many St. Louisans remember, daybreak would bring volunteers to clean, sweep and board up windows in Ferguson and along South Grand. To an artist’s eye, the boards were more than protective covering for looted businesses; they were blank canvases primed for an artistic unleashing after weeks of anxiety and civil unrest.
The art did more than bring hope and comfort to the Ferguson residents who saw parts of their neighborhood damaged and destroyed. It also inspired the children’s book Painting for Peace in Ferguson, winner of the Independent Publisher’s 2014 Outstanding Book of the Year Award Gold Medal.
On Tuesday, the one-year anniversary of the grand jury decision announcement, artists returned to Ferguson to paint for peace once again. Artist Phil Berwick, who moved to Ferguson last summer, put out the call for fellow artists to join him in painting murals along South Florissant Road, starting in front of Cathy’s Kitchen, a popular restaurant damaged during the protests.
“St. Louis continues to have a stigma” after protests over the death of Michael Brown became an international news story, Berwick tells SLM. “We want to paint over that stigma with the positive things that came out of the last year.”
See also: Ferguson: One Year Later
Berwick says he wants to “remember and continue” the artistic expression that followed the violence, especially after hearing rumors that the anniversary would mean “there was going to be outsiders coming and stirring stuff up.” As he spoke, an artist nearby chalked out a design of a peace sign surrounded by flowers for a mural on South Florissant Road.
When the painting started the morning after the riots, Carol Swartout Klein, a Ferguson native, remembers feeling emotionally transformed—not just by the art but by the spirit that inspired it.
“After months of tension and unrest on the streets of Ferguson, this was really the first moment when people said, ‘OK, we are going to come together,’” Klein tells SLM.
So Klein performed an artistic transformation of her own, writing Painting for Peace in Ferguson, a children’s book, inspired by the the people who worked to bring “hope and healing to their community using the simplest of all tools—a paintbrush.”
The book, now in its second edition, uses child-friendly verse to tell the story of St. Louis artists, business owners and residents who painted murals on about 100 damaged businesses. Filled with bright, beautiful photos of the murals, the book invites readers of all ages to linger over each photo and absorb the messages of peace and unity.
Her book became a tool, a starting point, for parents, teachers and librarians who wanted to talk to children about the protests they saw on TV or heard adults talking about.
“I really did think about the kids,” said Klein, who recently won the Jerry Paul Youth Advocacy Award for her efforts to empower youth in the St. Louis area. “Adults were having a hard time talking about this. Who’s thinking about kids?”
Klein remembers talking to a Ferguson mom whose 9-year-old daughter had just one wish for her birthday.
“She said, ‘Mom, can you just make the helicopters go away,’” Klein said.
When the paint dried on the first round of murals in Ferguson, Klein began to wonder what would happen to them.
“The art is just really cool,” Klein said. “It’s awesome, and it was going to go away.”
The Missouri History Museum now keeps many of the murals, but they’re also showcased in Klein’s book so families can see them at home.
It’s too early to know what will happen to the murals going up Tuesday in Ferguson, but Berwick says the mission is the same.
“We want to create creation. We want to paint kindness and unity,” Berwick says.
Contact Lindsay Toler by an email at LToler@stlmag.com or on Twitter @StLouisLindsay. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
