WE CHANGE, WE GROW, WE DO THIS TOGETHER, SOWE POCKET PARK MURAL, 2022

For this mural, Osmyn Josef Oree and myself creative art making moments starting in April of 2022 up until September. We received a grant from the Lancaster County Community Foundation’s Equity Fund to do this project. We created mini artworks, met pets, and took drawings and feedback from the community on what we should paint. A recurring theme was wanting to come together as a community. Our neighborhood has experienced so much change, from new parks to Covid causing pauses and uncertainty, new neighbors to feeling unsettled by rising costs and gentrification. What we all agreed on was change and growth are good as long as we remember that WE DO IT TOGETHER! We knew that the children early on requested there be lots of flowers, butterflies, and lot’s of color. After looking at everyone’s feedback, we took elements from each sketch that neighbors liked, and came up with the final design. The final sketch was still missing one key element. We wanted to make sure the hand holding the flower was someone from the neighborhood. During the first days of painting we were able to take a photo reference of the hand of someone from the community! She had been part of our conversations from the beginning so we were excited to rework the final painting to fit her hand. The pieces of the mural include, echinacea flowers, a plant native to Lancaster County, the image of a butterfly’s metamorphosis, and the hand of child from the neighborhood. Each piece is larger than real life because we wanted people who saw it to be immersed in color and vibrance that matches our beautiful community. We also wanted to highlight how important native flowers and plants are to our ecosystems by making them monumental! Photographs were taken by Melissa Engle Hess and Michelle Johnsen.