When Blake Lenoir painted a West Madison Street mural recognizing sex workers last year, his inspiration came from the Tupak Shakur poem, “The rose that grew from concrete.”
When he painted a 100-foot addition this fall, he did it for the children.
“The youth are watching,” Lenoir says. “Those children look out the window looking for role models.”
Now, the face of a school-age girl seems to gaze out into the neighborhoods, as the mural expands on the Austin and West Garfield Park border. Her chin rests on the palm of her hand, propped up by her elbow. She wears a pearl earring, white shirt with another blue top over it, and a yellow bracelet sporting a green flower with a pink center.
Lenoir filled the sloping viaduct walls on either side of the girl with blooming red roses.
For kids from these neighborhoods, which have some of the highest crime rates in Chicago, the new addition “brightens their neighborhood,” Lenoir says. What once was a grimy viaduct now gives kids a reason to walk by and smile every day.
As he painted, Lenoir says, bus drivers honked as they passed. Neighbors brought him bottles of water. Residents with relatives named Rose stopped to share their stories. The Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department brought a service vehicle and crew to help clean the viaduct and get it ready for Lenoir to paint, while ComEd crews donated time to pull out some of the trees growing out of the side wall, he says.
Now, there’s talk of adding a statue above the mural next spring, he adds. The whole project “directly affects the neighborhood it’s in. It’s amazing.”
The girl surrounded by roses expands on a mural that Lenoir completed in 2024. Turn the corner onto West Madison Street to see the first mural on another part of the viaduct. That strip of West Madison Street has been a sex worker hot spot for decades.
In the first mural, one end is filled with roses pressed against each other with women’s eyes and lips appearing in gaps in the flowers. Butterflies float along the top, taking flight from the bouquet. The roses’ green vines curl and twist along the white wall as it stretches east under the viaduct, dotted with red rose buds. A neighboring fence reads, “A (rose illustration) is still a rose,” with vines, buds and a flower punctuating the stretch.
Both murals were spearheaded by Jocelyn Woodards, a senior field representative for the National AFL-CIO. She serves as a community organizer and has worked on staff of U.S. five presidential campaigns. She wasn’t aware of the neighborhood’s reputation when she moved there and spent three years getting permission for the first mural.
Lenoir said his experience painting the walls has changed his focus as an artist. He previously focused on fine art and art fairs, he says. But now, he sees more outdoor murals in his future.
“I’m inspired,” Lenoir says. “This is much more fulfilling.”
“I’m very much a public artist now.”
