Art or Politics? : School Art Program Paints Itself Into Controversy Over Mural

Poems and pleas for peace adorn the large, multicolored mural painted last year on the gymnasium wall of Wilson Middle School by students working with a community artist as part of the city schools’ Young at Art program.

Yet a rainbow mural festooned with the words “Peace Please” for Washington Elementary proposed by students and its community artist was vetoed last month as a political statement inappropriate for the walls of a public school.

The specific explanation for the rejection by district schools Supt. Tom Payzant: a peace mural becomes more political than artistic when it’s created around the time the nation considers going to war.

Payzant also is considering a proposal that would require all projects to undergo a formal district review rather than simply have the approval of a principal and parent representatives.

While a majority of artists in the $3.75 million program--funded by philanthropist Muriel Glick--have encountered smooth sailing for their student-participation projects, there have been several disputes even before the latest “peace” incident.

Artist Ken Keegan sued the district after a principal ordered a mural created by Keegan’s students altered at Ericson Elementary in Mira Mesa because a stack of books painted as stairways to the wonders of the universe included titles banned at one time or another by schools and libraries in the United States.

Mario Torero, the artist involved at Washington Elementary, has battled with other principals on previous projects over the strength of the political and cultural statements that art should make.

“We are at schools as artists not only to teach children how to draw an apple, but also to teach them some ideas, some philosophy about art, and that there is a social consciousness to art,” said Torero, who is also a member of the city’s arts commission.

Under the Young at Art program, artists are assigned to various schools to work with students on murals, individual projects or other activities intended both to teach fundamentals and to improve the environment of schools and their surrounding neighborhoods through a permanent piece of art.

“We have to explain to many schools that artists are not some kind of aliens, that they won’t do outrageous things, that they will do things for kids, that they will boost pride in the school neighborhood,” Kay Wagner, arts coordinator for city schools, has said of various controversies with Young at Art. “That’s how I have had to sell the program, because schools know that artists are sociopolitical animals.”

Torero said the proposed peace rainbow mural at Washington--a heavily Latino school near downtown with a drab, cramped campus composed almost entirely of portable buildings--would have wrapped around a companion mural of George Washington with the theme, “Washington for Peace.”

The mural’s dedication was planned for Jan. 14, the day before the United Nations deadline for Iraq to end its occupation of Kuwait and the birthday of civil rights and nonviolence activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

That timing bothered principal Cecelia Fernandez, who queried the district’s attorney, Tina Dyer, after initially agreeing to the mural, which parents and students had helped Torero to design.

“The principal and I felt that in the context of (the withdrawal deadline), the mural was being turned into a political statement, not one of artistic expression,” Dyer said. “We felt it was not appropriate for the school at that time.

“It’s very hard to talk about these things in abstract . . . like free speech, you always have to look at the facts on an individualized basis, case-by-case.”

Fernandez is now on a medical leave and was not available for comment.

The Wilson Middle School mural was painted after Principal Kimiko Fukuda satisfied herself that the proposed mural from artists Yolanda Ariyana and Philip Matzigkeit had student and community approval.

Among the peace statements, one student wrote: “Earth is a beautiful place to be. People should have joy and caring for each other. There would never be war or nuclear weapons if they take responsibility for the beauty of nature.”

Another wrote: “Our responsibility is co-creating peace.”

Then there is: “Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty fell off the Peace Wall. Then the war began to appear, but when Humpty Dumpty got back on the wall, War would disappear.”

“I can’t believe the question of a mural’s controversy can be such a big problem,” Fukuda said. “Our mural makes kids think and it has gotten nothing but positive comments from students, from parents and from our (East San Diego) community.

“We’ve also got plenty of balance, if that’s what people worry about. Our school partner is the aircraft carrier Independence and we wrote letters to the crew and have had them at the school. There’s plenty of room for all sides of issues.”

Fukuda said she never gave any thought to calling the legal office for advice.

Payzant said the district “does not have a good set of expectations about who makes decisions on these kinds of things, and how to balance the complete freedom for an artist to do what he or she thinks is right, from an artistic viewpoint, with the question of what is appropriate as a lasting mural on a public building.

“Maybe, rather than having 160 different principals out there in the position of making the judgment calls, we should consider having not a bureaucratic long-drawn-out process but some kind off simple review process” at the district level, he said.

Referring to the banned peace mural, Payzant said, “Timing is of the importance. If that mural had been painted last spring, nobody would have had a second thought. Most people would say at a universal level that they want peace, that is easy to say, but it is only when you get beyond that, to peace at what cost, and in the context of what is happening in the Persian Gulf, that you get divergent points of views.”

Gail Boyle, a resource teacher at Wilson, said the district’s rationale struck her as inconsistent. “Does that mean they are for peace until there is a war?” she asked.

And Torero asked, “What is the fear of painting peace? Is someone going to vandalize the place? Is it a fear of taking sides, of looking at our consciousnesses?”