In new Lake View painting, animals beg us to save Earth

This material was originally published as the Murals and Mosaics newsletter on Nov. 3, 2023. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Good afternoon!

In a new Lake View mural, a “skywriting Chicago rat” of all creatures helps spread the message about the need to care for, and indeed fix, our climate and environment.

Piloting a single-propellor plane bearing the stars of Chicago’s flag, the rodent, wearing goggles in an open cockpit, writes ”Save Our Planet” in the clouds.

Below him, an outstretched hand, palm up, holds a globe, two dogs and a rabbit that’s staring at a thermometer with mercury about to explode with the heat.

The hand belongs to a version of Mother Nature, who emerges from the sea, surrounded by an octopus, seahorses and a hummingbird.

While addressing an obviously serious topic as the planet warms and species disappear in real life, artist Laura Junge says she intended “a lighthearted approach that will hopefully appeal to both the young and the not so young.”

She says “the animals of the Earth are there to alert us and to remind us that it is time to take action.”

As for the rat, Junge says it was a last-minute addition, noting, “I put rats in a lot of my stuff, the Chicago rat to me is iconic.”

“They’re so incredibly cute, I think.”

Junge, who lives in the South Loop and runs an art gallery in Wicker Park with her husband, says she’s participated for years in the Lakeview East Festival of the Arts put on by the North Side neighborhood’s chamber of commerce.

She says the group’s executive director, Maureen Martino, reached out to ask “would I be interested in painting ... on that wall,” located at Melrose Street and Broadway on a building with retail space and apartments.

Martino says, “That wall was just begging for some artwork” and Junge’s creation “shows a nice message, especially with a lot of kids going to school right there” at nearby Nettelhorst Elementary School.

“It speaks to them,” Martino says. “It’s just beautiful ... she’s got a lot of stuff in there to look at.”

Diane Tanios, one of the owners of the building, which dates to the late 1800s, says, “I’ve always wanted to do a mural on that elevation of the building,” and “everything kind of fell into place.”

“I think the concept is really beautiful, the way she brings land, sea and sky together,” Tanios says. “I think there’s a whimsy to it,” yet there’s also a “social commentary.”

Junge says, ”Honestly, I haven’t really done a lot of murals ... but I really wanted to do something large scale and meaningful. I have also painted large paintings and have painted for over 25 years so I bulldozed forward with that as my confidence booster. Along with my husband Chris encouraging me that I could do it.”

This artwork is the subject of this week’s Chicago Sun-Times ”Murals and Mosaics” feature. Please click here to read more.

Not that there isn’t enough public art to showcase from the Chicago area, but lately I’ve been branching out nonetheless, exploring what’s going on in other cities, wanting to share what I’m finding with you all.

The piece above is in St. Louis, done in 2021 by Jules Muck, a California-based artist who goes by Muck Rock, who’s also created artwork in Chicago.

“I love that piece actually,” Muck told us. “And for me it really embodies how I feel about the movement in St. Louis.”

Meaning the public art there is pretty organic, and flourishes from what some may regard as dark spaces like abandoned buildings. Like mushrooms, which can also be “gorgeous and fragile.”

As for the Volkswagen, you see the old hippie-mobiles ”left all over the country” and “you always see them in the coolest little spots and you wonder what the journey was,” Muck says.

One of Muck’s Chicago pieces was done a few years back on a retaining wall between Damen and Wolcott avenues, as part of a cool art project celebrating Chicago and its personalities and infamous characters.

Among them, as shown below, is late mob boss Al Capone, painted by Muck.

She says, “Some of the Chicago stuff” done over the years “was for fun, some was a little bit of work stuff.”

My colleague Katie Anthony recently caught up with Isaac Galvan, a Pilsen-based artist who reached out after seeing last week’s feature of a giant mural on the side of a home near Midway Airport.

It turns out he was the artist who completed the mural 13 years ago, along with some help from his sister, Alexandra Galvan Klaus.

Galvan pointed out some real-life characters he snuck into the mural, including friends and local creatives — even the homeowner Martin Castillo finds his way into the background.

Galvan is still painting murals — most recently the one shown above, a piece in Berwyn titled “Papalotl” that he just completed in October. It features a symmetrical portrait based on a photograph he took of a woman in Guatemala.

“What I’m going for right now is a sense of realism, or naturalism, based on the figurative,” he says. “I’m not painting large stacks of cash anymore with sun gods and hidden characters.”

The Berwyn piece is part of a larger mural display in the near west suburb.

Jim Bachor’s love of mosaics traces back to a tour guide in Pompeii, according to a new piece by WBEZ’s Rundown podcast.

But how the artist started applying this to potholes in Chicago, well, that’s a different story.

“I got to thinking,” he said, “I’ve got this reoccurring problem outside of the house that can’t be fixed, and then a hundred yards away in my studio in the basement here I am passionately working on this art form that’s so durable, why don’t I combine them?”

Want to learn “the origin story of Chicago’s pothole artist”? Then please click here to read and listen.

Click on the map below for a selection of Chicago-area murals

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Have a great weekend!

Robert Herguth, Sun-Times