The north facing wall of Springfield City School District’s youth innovation center, “The Dome," has a new, bright addition: a large art piece, entitled “You Belong Here.”
Its creator, Janel Young, is a professional artist from Pittsburgh, who grew up spending significant time in Springfield visiting family. She started painting on Sept. 3. Since then, brightly colored abstract shapes began to form the word “Belonging.”
“I think it challenges people to walk by this every day and think, ‘How do I make sure I'm part of people feeling like they belong?”
The piece was unveiled earlier this month. She was assisted by local artists Pete Hrinko and Matt Skaggs and International Baccalaureate art students from Springfield. Young said they got hands-on experience painting, cleaning, taping and organizing the large-scale project.
“They get to see it from start to finish and get their hands dirty,” Young said. “For a lot of them, this is totally new stuff. They were willing to just jump in. They were just down to do whatever I asked them to do from every part of the process.”
They started planning the piece over a year ago. In five sessions, community members from all generations shared their memories and experiences living in Springfield, as well as their hopes for the city.
“My inspiration really came from that,” Young said. “What we heard in those sessions was really that they want more opportunities. Even though this is a small city, there's a lot that can be done and can be very impactful here. I didn't want to lose sight of that.”
She said they also wanted the piece to acknowledge Springfield’s history and its growing cultural diversity. The city has found itself in the center of the national debate over immigration as its Haitian communities have grown in recent years.
“It's something that I wanted to bring attention to in this piece specifically,” Young said. “How we can band together and figure out the best way to move forward."
She used her vibrant, symbolic art style to translate that into image.
“What I like to do is I take notes in real time when folks are talking to me and telling me their stories and their memories,” Young said. “And I kind of transform them into shapes and colors. ”
The painting pulls imagery from the sky. Stars and clouds symbolize opportunity, imagination and potential. She uses her signature “Tribal Triangles” in the piece.
“It's my signature and it really just means togetherness. It means supporting each other,” Young said.
The piece also portrays Springfield's history of redlining – a discriminatory practice of denying someone access to home loans and credit based on where they live.
"The sense of this piece is really belonging and bridging the old and the new, the past and the future, and just realizing where we are right now, the moment that we have right now. It's pivotal."
“This is pretty abstract, even though it is text,” Young said. “That makes it artful, that makes people drawn to it. They want to know what it says. They have questions. What does this mean? And I always take that as a good sign because you're taking a moment just a little longer to look at it and then to maybe try to understand.”
Rightward pointing arrows framing overlapping geometric shapes, give the painting its feeling of forward movement.
“I wanted that to be representative of the intersections between people, our humanity,” Young said. “We're going to interact, we're going to clash sometimes. All of those things are very natural, but it's our job to find a way to make that impactful and kind and inclusive.”
The placement of the mural is deliberately in a high traffic area, Young said students, parents and staff witnessed her progress and provided some early feedback.
“My favorite part is when the school buses come and the kids roll the windows down and they're so curious and they're yelling, ‘Good job’ out the window. It kind of just reiterates why I do what I do. And this is not just paint on a wall.”
The project was commissioned by Springfield Public Art, the Springfield City School District and the Wescott House. It received funding from the Ohio Arts Council’s grant for innovative and experimental projects.