When Deanna Browley moved her hair salon, Relax She’s Natural, to its new home in West Town this spring, she didn’t know the landlord had a mural planned for the exterior wall over her store.
But when he asked her how she liked the art, she says, “it was a full-circle moment.”
The mural is a two-story image of a young Black girl in a sundress with her shoulders back and head up, a crown of matching blooms on her hair. The girl represents a young Marsha P. Johnson, one of the best-known protesters in the gay community’s Stonewall Uprising.
Browley has written a book about and advocates for Black women to wear their hair naturally, without chemicals or other treatments. So, to see a mural with a little girl doing just that, “For me, personally, it’s confirmation that this is where I’m supposed to be,” Browley says. “This is the next step in my journey.”
The mural at 1048 N. Ashland Ave. in West Town is one of the latest from Roscoe Village artist Ryan Tova Katz. As the girl in the mural walks proudly through flowers, rainbow shimmers flow down her dress, with white clouds billowing over a Chicago skyline in the background. A monarch butterfly flitters in front of her, as if leading the way. Petals protrude up from the ground, stretching to the top of the building’s first story.
Katz proposed this painting when the owner of the West Town building, Yuval Degani, approached her about doing a mural. They agreed immediately, she says. The image was originally commissioned by an LGBTQ elder care residence in New York, home of the Stonewall Uprising, but that assignment fell through, Katz says.
On June 28, 1969, patrons and neighbors at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, revolted against police who raided the establishment, something that happened often. That revolt sparked six days of protests and clashes and catalyzed the gay rights movement. The first Pride parades were held the next year.
Johnson was a transgender activist, a drag performer and a fixture in New York’s Greenwich Village from the 1960s until 1992 when her body was found in the Hudson River. She was 46. An investigation into her death remains open. She was inspiration for Andy Warhol, who featured her profile in his collection “Ladies and Gentlemen.” She was an AIDS activist who supported homeless street youth and performed with the drag group Hot Peaches. For much of her life, she lived on the streets.
For this mural, Katz says, she sought to use her personal style of “painting children in my whimsical scenarios” to honor Johnson. “I wanted to paint her in the life she deserved to have. I wanted to show her flower crowns that she was famous for.”
But that’s not all, she said.
“Lately with our government, I want to make as much of a difference as I can, and it’s so hard to feel like you can make a difference as one person,” Katz says. “But I have a voice in large scale art, and I’m going to make my voice heard in a cheerful happy way. I want to give representation to LGBTQ people, and Black and Brown people, and immigrants. They deserve all of our love.”
Katz used spray paints on this mural, along with her usual brushes and gallons of acrylic paint, she says. The aerosol helps cover the rough surface of the brick. As she painted, a preschool class often stopped to watch her progress and compliment the flowers. Bus drivers honked as they passed. Katz befriended neighbors who stopped to talk about her artwork.
Degani says commissioning the work is “just a way to give back. I try to create the most beautiful place for people.”
The mural is serendipitous for the new location of Browley’s salon. The girl’s image conveys “someone that’s walking through beauty and aspiring for more,” she says. As someone who grew up in a low-income household with a single mom and now runs her own business, that resonates with Browley, too.
“She represents perseverance for me. The little girl who wished everyone found her as beautiful as she felt — look at her now. She’s that beautiful.”
