M a r tin L u t h e r K in g J r .
lanuary IO, 2007
2007 sp e c ia l ed 77ion
Page A5
Mural Artist Packs Passionint0 Work
continued
from Front
historical figures as pioneer
Moses Harris, cowboy Bill Pickett
of C entralia, W ash., founder
George Washington, and early
w om an
law y er
B eatrice
Cannaday.
A mural on Northeast Martin
Luther King Jr. Boulevard, on
property owned by 'rvington
Covenant Church, was nearly lost
when the late p asto r Henry
Greenidge wanted to tear down
the structure it was painted on.
“The only thing he liked about it
was the portrait of Dr. King,”
Shamsud-Din recalls. That part
of the mural was added by an­
other artist.
Shamsud-Din’s latest work is a
powerful mural with brilliant col­
ors on the south wall of the Port­
land M usician’s Union Hall at
325 N.E. 20th Ave. For him, it
sends a message of another sort
of injustice: inadequate funding
for the arts.
The
m u s ic ia n ’s
union
partnered with the Mural Project,
which is seeking to promote pub­
lic art, for the commission. The
Regional Arts and Culture Coun­
cil awarded a grant of $ 15,000 for
the p ro je c t and selec ted
Shamsud-Din and three other art­
ists to carry it out.
“I love it,” union president
Bruce Fife says of the completed
mural. “Some things jum p out at
you from a distance, then you see
other details when you get up
close." He adds, "For Isaka, not
only were there challenges to
draw the mural, but to come up
with the money for it. That’s not
unlike what musicians must deal
with.”
“We spent $56 per square foot
on thut mural for materials alone,”
Sham sud-Din says. “We lost
money on that." R ACC dispenses
only $50,000 a year for public art
in the Portland metropolitan area
whereas Joliet, III., a city of just
100,000, spends $3(X).(XX)on pub­
lic art, he says.
,
The team is still seeking dona­
tions for the project through their
were in the speeches of the Black
Panthers and Jesse Jackson.
Shamsud-Din was one of 10
children of aTexas sharecropper.
After nearly being lynched, his
father came to Portland to work in
the Kaiser shipyards, and then
sent for the rest of his family. His
family witnessed the Vanport
Flood, which Shamsud-Din be­
lieves was a conscious effort to
disperse a multi-racial community
that was no longer wanted. Nor
was this the only example of rac­
ism he endured.
“We could only swim in the
Peninsula Park pool on Sundays,
and we couldn't swim at Jantzen
Beach at all,” he recalls. “There
were no black cab or bus driv­
ers.”
His first art project was com­
m issioned by his third grade
teacher. She asked him to do 52
slides to illustrate a storybook.
“Come Go With Me.” He said it
was his “first real sharp aw are­
ness of how all people portrayed
in media are white. All thecharac-
ters I was exposed to were white.
On billboards you see all white
people. I read National G eo­
graphic and encyclopedias cover
to cover, and even their people of
color are portrayed in a subservi­
ent, or happy old darky, way.”
The most common exception is
black athletes, who are celebrated
for their “instinctive” physical
skills, he said.
S h am su d -D in ’s career re ­
ceived a boost at age 14 when he
received a scholarship to a Mid­
western music and art camp, which
he attended for three summers
and where he received more ad­
vanced training. It was also at
this point that he felt "I could
start proving to ‘them’ that I could
measure up.”
His insistence that African-
photo by M ark W ashincton /T he P ortland O bserver Americans should not be "invis­
ible” caused him to leave the fac­
/saka Shamsud-Din explains the significance o f the mural he recently completed on Northeast 20th Avenue at the Portland
ulty at Portland State University.
Musician's Union Hall. He has multiple works around the city that speak to issues o f justice and cultural life in America.
“They wanted to relegate black
organization, Paint a Difference. Rights heroes reflect his back­ Violent Coordinating Committee Phillip Randolph and the Honor­
artists to black studies,” he says.
They can be reached at 503-232- ground. They include Stokely (Shamsud-Din worked for 10 able Elijah Mohammed. Of the
“I felt it was a great disservice tp
1671.
Carmichael, James Forman and months for SNCC as a field secre­ latter he says, “I would put him
all students to be exposed uly tp
S h am su d -D in 's own Civil John Lewis of the Student Non- tary in Stuttgart, Ark.); plus A. right up there with King. His ideas
European art, anti I still uo.” '
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