When Carrie Pullie talked to artist Joe “Cujo” Nelson about a two-story mural for a youth maker space, she quickly knew that he was the right person for the job.
“We wanted the youth to feel welcomed, and somehow we got on superheroes,” says Pullie, executive director of Metropolitan Family Services. The mural that resulted from their conversation, she says, is “a comic book theme” that “perfectly captured what we wanted to see.”
Now, the massive side wall on the building at 6410 S. Honore St. sports a Chicago skyline and suggests that the students inside are the real superheroes.
A girl with braids and blue poofy hair tips her eyeglasses with one hand while holding her camera in the other. A boy wearing headphones stands in front of a musical staff that swirls and zigzags up and across the wall, notes scattered throughout, while “From the Go!” bursts in front of him. The words “Unity!” and “Pow!” explode Batman-style on the other side of the wall in front of a blue sky above a black Chicago skyline.
“It’s really all about young superheroes and their origin story,” says Nelson, who used spray paint exclusively to create the mural. “A lot of new artists and creatives are going to find this incubator and turn into our next big whoever in Chicago.”
The incubator and maker space are housed at the Joyce Mpower House, a digital arts training facility for youth in West Englewood. The house is part of Metropolitan Family Services’ network of facilities.
Nelson has worked on other Englewood murals this year for Metropolitan Family Services. He joined fellow Englewood Arts Collective founder and mosaic artist JoVonna Jackson for the first time in creating a spray paint and mosaic mural on the group’s building at 235 E. 103rd St. That one has words that reflect the community, like “family” and “empowerment,” as well as birds and an abstract silhouette of a father, mother and child.
“There’s movement and the energy of growing and being active,” Nelson says, “but the piece itself is mostly about growing healing and energy.”
The two artists have worked together for years running the collective, and Nelson says he hopes they work on more art together.
For Jackson, the blended mural offered the opportunity to experiment with new mosaic techniques, particularly those for cutting mirrored glass. She also was pleased to receive her teenage daughter’s approval on her work.
“It’s hard to make things look cool to them,” Jackson says. “But my daughters like the work I do. I’m really proud of it.”
