{"id":105,"date":"2024-09-26T20:45:32","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T20:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2024\/?p=105"},"modified":"2024-11-07T15:46:28","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T15:46:28","slug":"murals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2024\/murals\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautifying communities through street art"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nebraska artist Sandra Williams\u2019 work seeks to facilitate social change by revealing a community\u2019s unique identity, often in partnership with others. Her art can be experienced as finely detailed paper cuts, imaginative paintings or sweeping murals.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within these forms, her work interweaves interest in her Indigenous Peruvian roots, a love of animals, and the friction that results when humans and the natural world collide, among other themes.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sandra Williams (center) and Maddie Vanderbur, a senior in graphic design and the mural\u2019s designer, look over a printout of the mural.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The mural is reflected in Beatrice High School student Addison Schafer\u2019s sunglasses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A mural printout is taped to the wall for the artists’ reference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Beatrice Middle School student Morgan Nielsen\u00a0helps paint the mural.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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UNL senior Lea Bushey hands paint and a brush to Morgan Nielsen as community members helped with painting.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Maddie Vanderbur and Lea Bushey add detail to the truck.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Senior art major Taryn Hamill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Lea Bushey, a senior graphic design student<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Senior art major Michelle Reese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As an associate professor of art, she may be best recognized, at least recently, for her classes in street art, a rare offering at universities. Street art embraces murals, graffiti and other forms, both sanctioned and unsanctioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese impromptu works create opportunities for people to come together,\u201d Williams said. \u201cDuring a period when we\u2019re spending more time with screens than with each other, forms of street art, like memorial walls, become meaningful for people.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can also beautify. Williams and her students are creating murals to help revitalize rural Nebraska towns. In summer 2024, she taught a class in which the students created an outdoor mural for a car dealership in Beatrice, Nebraska. In the process, they learned both artistic and practical aspects, such as budgeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see muralism as an opportunity for conversations about our history and land acknowledgement and things, both positive and negative, that have happened across the state,\u201d Williams said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Farther from home, during a trip to northern Peru, Williams considered the transitional region where the rainforest meets the Andes. Since then, explorations into colonialism, environmental issues, endangered species and other cultural abrasions inform her work.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, Williams has several projects in mind, including a mural featuring flowers native to the countries from which people have immigrated to Nebraska planned for 2026 in Alliance, Nebraska. She\u2019s also collaborating on a public art piece for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams\u2019 work can be found in museums or on walls from Peru to Key West to Oregon and many points in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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