Over 400 Long Beach community members’ handprints were added to the latest project in the “Love My Neighbor” series created by artist Alexey Steele at the TTC campus on May 7.
The California Creative Corps program granted $50,000 to Steele and partnered with local non-profit Care Closet to create murals of community heroes with a touch of community involvement, the center mural of this piece being LBCC Hall of Fame inductee and community advocate Duke Givens.
The portrait of Givens was surrounded by two fully orange canvases that had the words “love my neighbor” and “pluribus unum” painted across them.
“Being an artist, I’m very focused on people, human nature, how unique they are and I found myself fascinated most by people who possess a sort of code. They do things which are outside of reason, driven by heart and that’s what people respond to. These are the people that I define as great neighbors, and that’s Duke. That’s my neighbor,” Steele said.
Community members, mostly LBCC students and staff, picked from seven colors to have either one or both hands coated with acrylic paint in any combination or pattern, and were instructed by Steele in terms of placement on the orange panels.
These same seven colors made up the color palette used by Steele for the text on the piece.
Steele had elected Givens as the centerpiece after they had become art studio neighbors with a shared emphasis on the importance of community, and also elaborated that the choice of using hand prints was because of their historical significance as one of the first ways humans creatively expressed themselves.
Steele also clarified that the lack of an “e” before “pluribus enum” as seen in the Great Seal of the United States on the leftmost canvas is a modern reiteration of the phrase “Out of many, one.”
“A historic buff or Latin speaker might look at it and say ‘ah, there is a mistake’. (The ‘e’) is the preposition that makes ‘one’ of many. So the question is where is it? There it is, right above it, in the word ‘love’… So without ‘love’, there is no ‘one’ we can make,” Steele said.
TTC Associate Vice President Alisia Kirkwood appeared early in the event to leave her mark on the mural and show support for events that foster community.
“When people feel welcomed, they’re more likely to be engaged with what we have to offer (on campus). What I love about Alexey is that he makes you feel welcome, you feel like you know him, so I think how appropriate is it that we’re working with an artist that shares the value of community? ‘Love my neighbor’ essentially means you belong here,” Kirkwood said.
The event ran for three hours and had consistent foot traffic, ranging from students, admins, parents, children, and even a small English as a second language class (ESL).
Students Yuri Orrego and Jerry Jerry along with their ESL accent reduction class happened to be on break while the event was ongoing, and were led by their professor and head of the ESL Department, Maureen Mason, to participate.
“We are international students. We felt like we were able to integrate (with this event). I liked it, it’s a passionate and creative project,” Orrego said.
Jerry also praised the inclusive nature of the event.
“This is very meaningful to me because this gave… my friends, my classmates and my professor… a chance to (partake) in an event like this together,” Jerry said.
The murals are planned to be installed on TTC’s GG building, but the exact date has not yet been determined.