| Sheba McCants' passion is the visual arts. "Art is my main kind of thing, for sure," McCants said at Neighborhood House September 16. "It's my passion and my life's work. It's what I love." Her 'day job' has been making a difference in the lives of young people in Sun Prairie as a tutor coordinator for the Urban League of Greater Madison and the Schools of Hope Project -- although she recently was promoted to the position of volunteer coordinator at the Urban League. As a part of the MLK Jr. Youth Service Day after the program at Monona Terrace ended, McCants worked with 14 students on the beginning of a mural in the Rec Room at Neighborhood House. "We had kids come here to do the background on the right wall, the background of the sunset," McCants said. "I tried to direct them in terms of using the dark to the light paint to create a sunset. It needed a gradual change in color. I tried to explain it the best I could. They only had 1-2 hours to paint. That included set up and clean up. It was kind of chaotic. What young artists will learn is that art does really take a lot of time. It's something you put a lot of hours into. It involves a lot of patience. If I was able to work with the kids longer, they would have really been able to contribute a whole lot more to the mural." Over the course of the next eight months, McCants did a combination of engaging youth from the center's after school program --it is their handprints that adorn the mural -- and painting solo to create a tribute to the past and the present. In many ways, the mural begins and ends with Dr. King. Its inspiration comes from the King Holiday. "We start with Martin Luther King and travel on to a civil rights march that is focusing on public schools," McCants said. "At the corner where the two walls meet, we're actually making a leap and traveling through not only time, but also space. We're moving to 2007 and we're moving to Madison, Wisconsin. In 2007, we had our first annual youth march to the Capitol on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The actual signs that we carried are depicted on the mural. One of them is in Spanish. It was snowing pretty hard that day. It was a really awesome experience. There were about 200 young and old people. It was a great and powerful experience. The rest of the narrative continues on into the sunset. There's a sun that is painted in the lower right corner there. It is signifying the future and the unknown. So this mural is continuing off into the unknown. It's unfinished, leaving room for and open to what is to come. I wanted the mural to help us think about where we are headed and how far we have come since the day of Martin Luther King and how far we still have to go." The mural is not only an opportunity to look forward, but is also an opportunity to reflect back. "And you can go backwards on the mural for the youth to see from where they came," McCants observed."You need to know your past in order to know your future. That's Sankofa. I'm always about that." McCants loves to paint murals because they can be such a powerful, community-involving experience that everyone can appreciate. "One of my goals and something I think about is finding ways to connect the arts with the community better," McCants said. "I do feel there is a separation. I think the people who are into art are the privileged people, especially in Madison. I would really like to see the arts a lot more connected with the community. Murals really are that, a chance to really connect the arts with the community. That's powerful for me." McCants got her first taste at painting murals when she and her family attended a summer camp in Maryland for a few summers. And then as a student at New York University, she worked on a mural composed of three large wood panels that were a part of a friend's film project. McCants is already busy on her next project, a mural at Prairie View School in Sun Prairie as a part of a United Way "By Youth For Youth" initiative on which she will be working with a group of students. McCants isn't too worried about having a "day job" as long as she can pursue her artistic endeavors. "I see myself as always painting and never stopping," McCants said. "It's what I do. I'm an artist and I don't think that will ever change. It's in my blood. I'm excited aboutthat. I would love to do some outdoor murals. I'm also interested in digital media art." For McCants, there are a lot of walls and a lot of history to cover. For more information about the Neighborhood House mural, e-mail McCants at smccants@ulgm.org. |
| Mural history By Jonathan Gramling |
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| Its inspiration is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. Its fulfillment is the 1st Annual King Youth March. Its future is whatever young people chose to make it. It began last January during the Martin Luther King Youth Service day at Monona Terrace. It ends within the imaginations of those who behold it. |