Every day we must struggle to stay focused on saving this beautiful planet

Every day we must struggle to stay focused on saving this beautiful planet

Mural designed and painted by youth of the S.P.O.T.S (Supporting People’s Outlooks, Talents and Speech) class at Richmond Art Center

Everyday We Must Struggle To Stay Focused On Saving This Beautiful Planet is a mural designed and painted by youth artists at Richmond Arts Center. Students in the class brainstormed and collaborated on creating this piece that focuses on the changing climate, possible causes, and creative strategies to bettering ourselves and the environment. Each participant contributed images that reflect a polarizing question of our day, When will we prioritize our earth over man’s advancement?  

In the mural from the right, going clockwise, you will see an upside down city, symbolizing the extreme opposite of a well adjusted humanity. A grave yard below the city with ghost rising represents our ancestors whose energy contributed to the present. The graveyard is a space of limbo questioning the consequences of decisions made in the past. In the background there is a mandala like light source shining onto a person with their fist up showing support to the center image of a monumental figure holding a floating earth above the head of a small girl. The small girl symbolizes knowledge and learned behaviors received from the elders. These figures bravely exist next to a burning tiger and a bleeding tree, symbols of a collapsing environment terminally affecting all our relations, i.e. people, animals, trees… As we look to the top left of the mural we see a flying bee, who according to the international conservation nonprofit Earthwatch Institute is the most important species on earth and a person in a meditative pose rising above these act as symbols of life and possible solutions to human made turmoil. 

“Every day we must struggle to stay focused on saving this beautiful planet,” is a quote by activist , artist, and healer Jorge Guillermo Perez Molina.

Directed By Fredericko Alvarado, Assisted by Keena Romano

Artists: Emily Jo Benjamin, Kaitlyn Bordas, Denise Campos, Vincent Castellanos, Stephanie Garcia, Yahir Garcia, Anwar Mateo Mixcoatl-Diaz, Leslie Poblano, Skyler Rouse, Lizzeth Torres, Iris Wiley Sittler

Online Artists’ Talk: Saturday, August 28, 2pm-3pm 

Link to View the Talk on YouTube: https://youtu.be/suNvwmsU6jk

Please join on Saturday, August 28, 2pm via YouTube to celebrate the launch of this new mural and hear from the artists about their experiences creating it.