{image1}Almost immediately after a controversial mural was hung in the rotunda of the Milwaukee County Courthouse, complaints started to pour in. Consequently, after two days, the 8-by-16-foot piece was moved outside the county executive's office, but soon more complaints caused it to be removed.

Once again, the mural, "Watts Happening" -- created by Los Angeles artist Elliot Pinkney
at Marquette University's Haggerty Museum of Art -- was in need of a home.

Dal Drummer, artistic director for the Lincoln Center of the Arts, a Milwaukee public middle school, thought their gallery would be the ideal place for the large painting because they could accommodate its size and because many Lincoln students deal with the issues depicted in the painting on a daily basis.

"For many students, what is depicted in the mural is part of everyday life," says Drummer.

The subject matter reflects on urban violence, drugs, gangs, leaders and symbols in African-American communities from the '60s to the present. At the center of the mural is a skeleton wearing a death cloak and holding a gun, a syringe and a cigarette, joint or blunt. Two faces wearing bandanas symbolize the tension and bloodshed between the The Crips and The Bloods.

The mural also shows positive and hopeful images, such as blooming flowers, butterflies, the American eagle, white doves of peace, great black role models like Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Bradley -- the first black mayor of Los Angeles -- and Willie L. Williams, the first black police officer in L.A.

There are also newspaper articles speaking about police brutality. Some complaints reflected the concerns that because the headlines read, "stop police brutality" it suggested that such a thing is a problem in Milwaukee.

Pinkney feels it is a problem in Milwaukee, as well as in all medium-to-large cities. "We are a violent society," he says. "This is reality. You can't hide from it."

The Haggerty Art Museum commissioned Pinkney to create the piece after housing an exhibit in early 2003 called "Watts: Art and Social Change in Los Angeles, 1965-2003." In the exhibit, 10 African-American artists addressed the Watts community in L.A. through visual, literary and performing arts.

During the painting of the mural, Pinkney's studio was open to the public, and many MPS classrooms came to observe and discuss the work in progress.

Prior to the mural's installation, Lincoln Center teachers were given a learning packet about the piece and encouraged to incorporate it into their lesson plans through discussion, writing and art.

"Watts Happening" stands behind glass in the Lincoln Center art gallery. Signs hang every few feet asking students to ask their teacher about the mural because, understandably, it could be and has been misinterpreted. Drummer and principal Maria Sanchez also wrote a letter to parents, explaining the mural and encouraging them to discuss it with their children.

"As an arts school, Lincoln students and teachers have to deal with artistic ideas that could qualify as a concern," says Drummer. "We felt this mural, while dealing with concepts and depictions that more of us feel undesirable in life, also shows part of history, the people who were movers and shakers and what they had to deal with."

(Note: The reporter's husband is a teacher at Lincoln Center of the Arts.)