August 1, 2004
NORTHTOWN Academy, a Chicago International Charter School, is interested in volunteering to paint a mural on the south wall of the Peterson underpass. A mural now exists across the street on the north wall. More information will be forthcoming, as the idea is still under discussion.

Four years ago this month, Northeastern Illinois University professor Santiago Vaca and his art students turned a dingy viaduct along Peterson Avenue in Sauganash into a work of art.

 Though they completed their mural -- which takes its themes from Chief Sauganash (aka Billy Caldwell) and the community's Native-American heritage -- Vaca said his work wasn't done.

He has brought students to the viaduct, located along the Belt Line railway tracks just west of Pulaski Road, every year since to restore it after damage from "the hazards of public art." The mural, on the north side of the street, is at the mercy of soot, water seepage, humidity, climate change and vandals.

Vaca and four of his students were out on a sunny afternoon June 7 scraping away loose paint, matching the original colors in spots they were touching up, and blending the fresh paint with the existing mural to create consistency.

He said works of public art add to the fabric of the communities where they are on display. There has been a movement to restore murals that were painted throughout the city in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the challenges with renewing a faded mural is that it is a reflection of the times in which it was created, and the culture of the neighborhood as it existed. With gentrification turning older neighborhoods into enclaves for young professionals, the art sometimes clashes with the ideals of the current residents.

"I think public art enriches the neighborhoods," Vaca said. "The murals are part of a neighborhood's history."

His classes have worked on other projects over the years, including a mural on Division Street in Wicker Park, and another in the Fine Arts Building on the Northeastern University campus, 5500 N. St. Louis Ave.

Vicki Haas, a resident of Maywood, is leading this year's project. Haas said the Maywood mural would reflect the past, present, and future of the near-west suburb.

As they did while planning the Sauganash project, students interviewed residents to find out what they feel is important about the community.

Other students from Vaca's class were putting together a design proposal at the university to present to the Maywood building owner, while Vaca and company were touching up the Peterson Avenue painting.

As traffic raced by under the viaduct that Wednesday afternoon Vaca pointed to a blank wall on the south side of Peterson Avenue. Though the wall was painted white in preparation for a possible mural there, he said it is too pockmarked, cracked, and inundated by moisture to consider putting one there.

It might have too many built-in hazards to be public art, he said.

Recent Northtown Academy graduate Justin Romero and a dozen of his classmates painted a mural under the viaduct on Peterson just east of Rogers Avenue as a gift to the Sauganash neighborhood. The Northtown graduating art students worked on the painting in six-hour stints every Saturday in May and June.