PS 369K Lions Mural
with Anagh Banerjee, ShinYeon Moon, Adan Palermo and Colin Verdi
This project was a long time coming. I first started going into PS 369K when the NoVo mural was still in its planning phases, late in 2017. I did mural workshops then, so the students and staff would be acquainted and welcomed into the mural process that was happening outside of their window.
Because of the nature of the community at that school, I kept coming back. Book readings, gift drives, art workshops . . . And eventually, in 2019, plans for a mural of their own. In late 2019, I did a series of mural workshops with the staff and students, but that was just before the whole world changed. The mural design that came from those workshops was approved, the world shut down, and we waited.
PS 369K is a District 75 school and students are bussed in to Brooklyn from all over the city. In every way, the pandemic hit the students’ communities disproportionately hard and the loving, devoted, scrappy school staff rose to every occasion. By the time we could finally paint the mural, all these years later, the original design didn’t apply anymore. While the students and school had been through the worst of Covid, the encroaching development all around them- luxury high rises in front, the newish Holiday Inn on one side and the brand new Ace Hotel on the other, all, quite literally, cast the school in their shadows.
I came back to the school for a new round of workshops earlier this year. Ms. Fernandez, their spectacular art teacher, who took me to meet with every class in the school, said, “Why don’t you include a lion in the design?” The lion is the school mascot. And the more I thought about it, the more students, paras, teachers, and staff I met, the lion was just right. The lion represented the bravery of the students, who show up day after day in an often-terrifying world. A world that, especially for the kids at this school, often chooses to overlook them and the diverse ways they exist in this world. The lion also represents the school staff . . . The protectors, the devoted chosen family of the students here. So, the 369 Lion was born.
The new design reflects the new world we all found ourselves in after the worst of Covid had past. The teachers’ input to the design, the students ideas and wonderful drawings, were all different the second time around. What we would have done in 2019, so different than what we need in 2022.
So, here it is. Big and small. The lion- the bravery of the students and the loyalty and protection provided by the staff. The golden sky, reminding the ever-gentrifying neighborhood that the students are the true treasures of this community. The shades of blue circles around the ground (inspired by my friend and forever collaborator Caleb Neelon) represent how, although the ground beneath our feet is constantly shifting, the staff and school community constantly adapt, keeping the students’ world stable and steady despite all the changes faced. The students are adorned in the art of their own making, engaged in doing all the things that make them so uniquely, so marvelously, actively them. The staff, painted in loving presence and partnership with the kids they support every day. The constellations in the sky, comprised of the constellations that shine brightest, symbolize the kids . . . The brightest stars in the sky. And the details . . . So lovingly painted by the team . . . Adan’s Crocs charms and Colin’s birds . . . Among the fan favorites of this project. And the poem . . . One I’ve used before in other school murals, but always resonant, always right.
The Dream Keeper
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
-Langston Hughes
You can see the mural in Brooklyn on Schermerhorn between Bond and Nevins. I hope you’ll check it out. I’ll also be posting ways you can support the school in the coming months, so please stay tuned.
