Paintings pop up in town, memorializing Black lives lost

The ‘Remembrance Project’ aims to provide education through art.

By Elizabeth Shepherd • July 16, 2020 1:30 am
Courtesy Photos Top left, a large portrait of Samuel DeBose faces the street at The Ruby Brink. Top right, Philando Castile’s portrait hangs at Lost & Found. Bottom left, a portrait of Rekia Boyd adorns the front window of Rock It. Center, Breonna Taylor’s photo graces the entrance to Vashon Pizza. Bottom right, a portrait of Atatiana Jefferson hangs inside Vashon Island Baking Company.
Courtesy Photos Top left, a large portrait of Samuel DeBose faces the street at The Ruby Brink. Top right, Philando Castile’s portrait hangs at Lost & Found. Bottom left, a portrait of Rekia Boyd adorns the front window of Rock It. Center, Breonna Taylor’s photo graces the entrance to Vashon Pizza. Bottom right, a portrait of Atatiana Jefferson hangs inside Vashon Island Baking Company.

Before their names became known in the worst possible way — in media reports detailing their senseless and violent deaths — they were mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, spouses, friends and workers.

Now, a new art project called the Vashon Remembrance Project is aimed at memorializing the full lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Charleena Lyles, Kalief Browder, Aiyana Jones, Elijah McClain, Delrawn Small, Rekia Boyd, Tamir Rice, Atatiana Jefferson, Samuel DeBose, Darrien Hunt, and other Black Americans who have died at the hands of police.

Detailed at vashonremembers.org, the project will also expand soon to memorialize historically marginalized people and heroes of social justice and civil rights movements.

The project is currently responsible for the sudden appearance of large portraits of the people listed above, now hanging on the walls and street-facing windows of businesses including Gather Vashon, Studio Lux, IGA/Vashon Pizza, Lost & Found, Sarah’s Salon, Vashon Island Baking Company, Café Luna, Vashon-Maury Island Property Management, Rock It, Herban Bloom, The Ruby Brink and Anu Rana’s Healthy Kitchen.

More portraits will soon be installed in other places, including Gravy, VALISE Gallery, Recess Lab, Minglement, Vashon Center for the Arts, Voice of Vashon and the Vashon Heritage Museum.

Each portrait is accompanied by a QR code, which enables viewers to access more information online about the rich lives of subjects of the paintings, before their untimely deaths — their deep relationships with others, talents, skills, likes and dislikes, ambitions, dreams, disappointments and plans for their future.

According to the Remembrance Project’s website, the paintings are meant as a course correction to media depictions of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) victims of police violence as one-dimensional and troubled people, as well as the failing of the U.S. educational system to teach children about systemic racism threaded throughout our nation’s history.

The artist and educator spearheading the project, who moved to Vashon with his wife and young child six months ago, has requested that his real name not be linked to the project and that a pseudonym, West McLean, be used instead.

The reason? He wants all the focus of the work to remain on the men and women he is eulogizing in the project.

In an email, McLean gave a lengthy explanation for his request for anonymity.

“I have these lofty ideas about remembering and history and memorializing those who are murdered by what I believe is state-sanctioned domestic terrorism and rampant white supremacy,” he wrote. “But I also have a fair share of anxiety about the real worth of projects like this, versus, for instance, donating time to inner-city relief organizations or more worthy endeavors outside of my comfort zone. I paint these portraits from deep within my white privilege bubble — and that’s why I want to be very intentional about not having myself attached to the portraits in any way that garners personal recognition. I don’t want myself, or my whiteness, or my story, to distract from the lives or events we aim to help people remember.”

McLean also added, in a subsequent interview, that he did not want to make any money on the project.

For some business owners and representatives of island nonprofits, the decision to participate in The Remembrance Project has been an extension of their recent public statements condemning racism, made in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests that have taken place across the nation and on Vashon.

At one of Vashon’s three protest events, on June 6, more than 500 islanders gathered for a candlelight vigil at the intersection of Vashon Hwy. and Bank Rd., where McLean’s portrait of George Floyd hung prominently in the window of The Hardware Store Restaurant. It was the first time the artist had displayed work on Vashon, and a precursor to the swift emergence of the Vashon Remembrance Project.

Bruce Haulman, president of The Vashon Heritage Museum, said that supporting the project aligned with the museum’s anti-racist statement, which reads in part, “Our purpose is to honor stories of love, oppression, action, and resilience; stories that give voice to all, examine hard questions about social, economic, and environmental justice, and reveal racism and oppression within our heritage.”

This week, the museum will mount large vinyl posters of its new Black Lives Matter logo and McLean’s portrait of Floyd on the side of its building.

“Too often, museums wind up representing the dominant culture, so it is very important to us to make clear that we’re here to give voice and represent and stand in solidarity with everyone on the island,” Haulman said, in a phone interview.

Likewise, in an email to the producers of Voice of Vashon radio content, the station’s executive director, Kate Dowling, said the VoV’s decision to participate in the Remembrance Project reflected the station’s public statement on June 14, saying, “We reject the voices of racism and hate.”

Chris Boscia, who recently formed Vashon in Solidary Alliance (ViSA), and Pete Welch, of Vashon Events, are also supporters of the project.

In a phone call, Welch said that he had seen McLean’s work on social media, and suggested to the artist that the work could hang in the shop windows throughout Vashon. Later, he provided McLean with contacts for several island businesses.

“Like everybody else, I don’t know him at all,” Welch said. “I just saw his artwork on one of the Facebook pages and I was drawn to it like everyone else. It’s a great project and I just want to help people who are doing cool things.”

McLean said that he was grateful for Welch’s help, and the participation of so many businesses and nonprofits on Vashon. He added that more components of The Remembrance Project would soon be seen around the island and that the focus of the project would continue to be on education.

“Being an instructional designer, and having strong opinions about educational content design and ‘the things our children are taught,’ especially in regard to historical whitewashing, I also wanted the Remembrance Project to develop kid-focused educational content about social justice, civil rights, and historical truths, “ he said.

The first of many efforts in this vein is now taking shape, he said, with the upcoming installation of a large painting of Rosa Parks inside Minglement. The painting will be accompanied by an interactive lesson about the civil rights icon, with island youth giving voice to her story.

For more information on the project, visit vashonremembers.org. The website contains a map to the locations of all the paintings currently hanging on Vashon.