A northern Illinois community came together this weekend to help paint a mural. That’s despite a dispute over the planning process.
Artist Joshua Schultz was tasked with creating the artwork. He said he had no doubts about people showing up to help.
“I think that the thing about Aurora and downtown Aurora and the friends of Aurora,” he said, “is that everyone really just wants things to get better and be better and have a good time making them better.”
Schultz shared that he has absolute faith in the Aurora community.
Color specialist Rebekah Axtell is acting as production support for the job. She said regardless of recent conversations about the mural, the community is showing its true colors.
“Well, everybody that had different opinions about it all came to work on it together,” she expressed. “So, I think that is Aurora, we know we're very resilient and passionate.”
Axtell conveyed the colors of the mural symbolize the tone of the city. She said the red in it means passion and pink shows love and tenderness in the community.
“And then we've got a gold with a nice metallic gold finish for like the success everybody wants to see,” Axtell said. “We've got that bright, bright blue, and that symbolizes the way we dream big.”
Axtell said everyone’s voice got to be heard this season. And now, she said, in this mural all those voices have come together. She also said that people will see a difference as things move ahead.
More than 10 people helped paint Sunday.
- Yvonne Boose is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
