The Community Mural and Democratic Art Processes

Abstract

The author’s 2002 mural project in Saginaw highlights the adaptable, site-specific, educational, and inclusive process of community mural development. His nine-step “tennis game” process maximizes both professionalism and community participation and decisions. The contemporary community mural movement continues public art traditions of the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act program of the 1970s. Travel in Japan and South Africa prompted the author to question the adaptability of American community art models.