BACK OF THE YARDS — It starts and it ends with love.
That's the theme of a new two-block mural unveiled in the 1900 block of West 49th Street Friday morning.
“That is truly the message we want to take into our communities,” said Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th), speaking in front of news cameras under a viaduct at 49th and Wolcott to evade a downpour.
The unveiling follows seven weeks of work by 10 artists from Back of the Yards and surrounding neighborhoods. They worked four days a week, meeting in the morning Monday-Thursday.
"When we first seen these walls, we were like, 'Oh my God, we're NOT going to get this done,'" said Annesah Muhammad, a 17-year-old artist who painted part of the mural. "And now look: We have, like, beautiful walls behind us."
The artists painted the walls through One Summer Chicago, a youths jobs program that provides employment and internships to teens and young adults between the ages of 14 and 24.
The program lands youths in a variety of industries, including urban agriculture, outdoor forestry projects, bike repair and office work.
"We're all youth that came from different communities," said Michael Ford, 19, of Englewood. "We're all from different neighborhoods, but we all came here to make a little bit of a difference in these other people's lives."
The murals, Ford said, help brighten a world filled with "pain and hatred and violence and death right now."
Muhammad said she will always remember her time painting the mural, an experience filled with highs and lows — like dropping her glasses in a bucket of paint.
"I got pooped on by a bird," she said.
Then there were the times neighborhood folks brought over popsicles and Gatorade.
And the times the artists had to evade bugs crawling on their concrete canvas and rodents scurrying out of nearby alleys.
Erica Flores, 20, was nervous at the start of the job. By the end, she wished she had another two blocks to paint.
"I would definitely do this again," she said.
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