Artist who oversaw work not in favor of restoration

CHAMPAIGN – Angela Rivers couldn't imagine a huge mural being created today in north Champaign-Urbana like the one she helped create there in 1978. And she discourages folks who would like to see its restoration.

"It's dying very gracefully, like Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper,'" Rivers said.

For one thing, she said during a talk last week on the University of Illinois campus, the black community that helped create the historical mural is not cohesive like it was in the 1970s, when everyone knew everyone else and their families, said Rivers, whose own family settled here shortly after the Civil War.

And it would be a major expense to create or even restore the mural. In 1978, it cost $28,000 to create, taking into account volunteer time, donated and budgeted materials and salaries.

Also, grant money for such projects has basically dried up. The mural Rivers oversaw had been a project of the Comprehensive Employment Training Act, a 1973 federal law that trained workers by providing them jobs in the public sector.

She was a young woman armed with a bachelor's degree in painting from the University of Illinois when she was "commandeered" to supervise 20 high school students and young adults in creating the mural.

The mural movement had started a decade or so earlier in Chicago and expanded nationwide, with many of the murals making political statements. To get the one done in Champaign, Rivers agreed the mural would not be political.

"Everybody wanted to make sure the mural would be historical rather than political," she said. "At that point, histories of African-Americans and of Latinos and Puerto Ricans were considered political statements."

Listening to community input, Rivers first made preliminary sketches emphasizing the historical themes. She gave particular focus in the lower left-hand corner to a depiction of a black family, making their eyes extraordinarily large so they would be seen from blocks away and pull in viewers.

She communicated African-American history by starting with depictions of Egypt, two villages that symbolize Africa, the Middle Passage, slavery, the major migrations north, and a farmer and two horses plowing while moving toward a sunrise. She also added depictions of some of the oldest African-American churches and homes on the block.

The Marco family donated the use of the north wall on a large garage at Fifth and Park streets, stipulating that its three windows not be covered and that the large door would still open and close after the mural was finished.

"The wall needed a lot of work," Rivers said.

Her crews first tuck-pointed, scraped, sandblasted and then primed the wall. Rivers had created a "cartoon" of the mural; her helpers transferred it to the wall. If one was standing high on a ladder, another worker below would tell what direction to make the lines.

As for painting – the Champaign Park District gave Rivers a grant for painting supplies – the artist mixed paints and gave them labels and put those labels in the corresponding parts of the mural.

Rivers had her two crews of workers for only six weeks. One worked on the mural in the mornings and received job training in the afternoon, and the other crew, vice versa.

At first, most of them sat around and talked but eventually became enthusiastic about the project. So did community members.

People stopped by every day to see the mural in progress. Supervisors of a nearby day care center walked their children past the mural every day as well, Rivers said.

When the six weeks were up, though, the project was still not completed. Rivers spent the next three and a half months finishing most of the third and all of the last section herself. Artist friends stopped by each morning and evening to help her set up and tear down.

Rivers eventually went on to teach at Eastern Illinois University and to work at Chicago's DuSable Museum of African American History and in museum education for some 20 years. The artist is now a consultant living in Chicago.

After leaving Champaign, she worked on a few murals in Chicago. She never again worked on one as big as the mural in her hometown. Not long after it was completed, she said, the Champaign Park District won a national award for its small park adjacent to the building, mainly because of the combination of the mural and park.

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