SARANAC LAKE — A couple of hours before Tri-Lakes Pride began on Sunday, a different kind of rainbow appeared on Main Street: ADK ArtRise’s new technicolor community mural, “Welcoming and Belonging.”
The mural is comprised of 32 panels painted by different artists and community groups around Saranac Lake. Though each panel depicts a different scene, object or idea, they all come together to form a rainbow gradient. The project, coordinated by ArtRise co-owner and teacher Britt Sternberg, has been in the works since last fall. Sternberg said the mural’s inception is a “long story.”
“Originally, this was a project that was started by the Adirondack Diversity Initiative and Paul Smith’s College,” Sternberg said. “They wanted to work on creating safe spaces. They had done a study on campus and they wanted to find a way to tie Paul Smith’s students and have them interact with community members. ArtRise was just going to be the place to house that happening.”
ArtRise applied for and received two grants for the project — funding from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding came from the Our Town Blu/Pen Artist in Residency collaboration between BluSeed Studios and Pendragon Theater.
ALL WEAVED TOGETHER
But, after receiving the grants, the original coordinators of the project had to bow out. Not wanting to waste the idea or the funding, Sternberg stepped up to lead the project, putting her own spin on it.
“The thing that was important to me is, I wanted to make sure that we had individual identities that were maintained and separate but all weaved together to tell one story,” Sternberg said.
The 32 panels each depict a different locally-relevant theme. Some of the themes include the Saranac Lake Free Library, hiking, music venues, and local groups like the Canoodlers and Lawn Chair Ladies. Most of the panels were painted by individual artists, while others were tackled by groups of artists like the kids of the Saranac Lake Youth Center and Saranac Lake’s Girl Scouts troop.
Another panel near the bottom left corner of the mural depicts three shelves of books with names like “Thrills and Spills — I’ve Lived Here a Hundred Years,” “Badminton Took Me Around the World” and “Keeping My Nose Clean.” These are not real novels, but rather residents of Saranac Village at Will Rogers’ answers to the question “If your life was a book, what would the title be?”
To tell the story of each panel’s theme and artist, ArtRise has created an interactive digital version of the mural on its website. This page can also be accessed by scanning the QR code mounted on the wall next to the mural.
BLACK IS A RAINBOW COLOR
Sternberg said she decided to expand the mural’s rainbow partway through the project after her daughter provided some inspiration.
“I wanted to do a rainbow because the whole thing is about welcoming and belonging and being inclusive,” she said. “The original design only went from red to purple, and then my daughter brought home a book from the library called ‘Black is a Rainbow Color’ and it was so powerful that I expanded the mural to include black to white.”
The children’s book, written by Angela Joy and illustrated by Ekua Holmes, follows a young Black girl as she finds her place in the traditional rainbow that typically excludes the color of her skin. It has been challenged and removed from school libraries since its publication in 2020 for dealing with themes of racism.
The final mural’s colors start with black and brown before transitioning into the usual “ROYGBIV” and ending with pink and white. Sternberg said that the rainbow is a “statement” of what ArtRise and Saranac Lake stand for.
“It says we’re going to keep pushing to have an inclusive, welcoming community,” she said. “This is a very forward-facing mural. Despite whatever things may have happened in the past, we are going to keep moving forward. We’re going to keep working for a change, and I think that this shows that this is something that’s important to our community.”
TO STAND IN AWE
Sternberg added that the crowd of people who turned out for the Sunday morning mural unveiling shows how much support there is for inclusive principles in the village.
“This mural, specifically, it shows our entire community. Public art is so important anyways, but this specific mural shows all of our community. Everyone has participated in it in some way, shape or form,” she said.
Melissa Hernandez, executive director of Saranac Lake arts center BluSeed Studios, said that public art means “joy and entertainment.”
“It brings joy. If it’s good art, it’ll bring introspection. It’ll make you think, ponder, wonder,” she said. “I think that’s the value in public art in general, is that it should make you think. It should make you stand in awe of something that maybe you’ve never seen before.”
ArtRise’s “Welcoming and Belonging” outdoor mural is on the side of its building at 62 Main St., facing the public parking lot next door. To learn more about each individual panel, visit adkartrise.com/communitymural or scan the QR code mounted next to the mural.