Chicago murals: Native wildflowers in Forest Glen mural painted by a native son
When Wesley Truman Daniel visits his old Sauganash neighborhood, or his parents travel to O’Hare Airport, they drive under the highway overpass at North Forest Glen Drive, west of North Cicero Avenue.
So when Forest Glen Community Club members requested proposals for a mural in that underpass, the Chicago Public Schools elementary art teacher submitted not just one, but four different designs.
“I was raised in Sauganash,” says Daniel, who now lives in Buena Park. “This is a big one.”
The team selected one of those designs, titled Dawn Flower Forest, to cover one of the walls under Interstate 94 on the border of Sauganash and Forest Glen. He painted it last fall.
The mural shows native Illinois flowers like black-eyed Susans as tall as the underpass, resembling a forest of flowers. Residents run, bike and push a child on a tire swing among the stems that stand on rolling hills of green. Shades of blue and puffy white clouds billow behind it all.
“It was my wife’s idea to make (flowers) forest-sized and have (residents) strolling through,” Daniel says.
He got a boost from Chicago artist Cyd Smilie, president of Arts Alive Chicago, a nonprofit in Old Irving Park that promotes neighborhood art, connects artists, businesses and property owners and supports neighborhood arts initiatives. Daniel served as an intern for Smilie when he was a student at nearby Northeastern Illinois University, and the two continued working together after he finished his program.
When Forest Glen Community Club members asked Arts Alive Chicago staff to recruit artists to submit proposals, Smilie encouraged Daniel to apply. He was one of six to submit ideas, she says.
“We try to bring in artists who meet the style and standard they’re interested in,” Smilie says. The Forest Glen Community Club wanted a mural that included nature, neighbors and the active lifestyle that draws many to the neighborhood. They didn’t want it to reflect current events or anything else that would date the mural as it aged.
With its active subjects, native flowers and vibrant hues, Daniel’s proposal fit the bill.
Smilie helped Daniel as he painted the mural last fall. He crafted his design with the app Procreate, and Smilie brought her virtual reality glasses so the two could plug the design into the glasses, look at the wall and then trace its outline, he says. They hand-painted the rest with acrylic house paint.
The mural was so well received that the club commissioned Daniel to paint another across the street in the same underpass. This mural will include a forest of native flowers, this time in the evening with neighbors slowing down under a moon, stars and rich purple night sky, he says. He plans to paint that one this summer.
Smilie says the final mural was just what she hoped for. “It’s so clean and colorful. It’s exactly what Forest Glen wanted.”