There’s a new wall mural at Ix Art Park. It’s an explosion of colors, shapes, and symbols. There are words of advice—“Be humble”—and statements of power—“Black women built this,” “Lesbian pride.” It’s made of hearts and rainbows and flowers and peace signs. And above it all, a bold and insistent proclamation: “There are Black people in the future.”
The quote by artist Alisha B. Wormsley calls to onlookers from across the street in large white letters. It’s a prophecy and a gesture of solidarity, advocating for more than just a Black presence in humanity’s far-off cosmic future, but also for Black lives and Black relevance in the near future—the future of changing neighborhoods and redrawn districts.
For Jay Simple, the new executive director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, which shepherds the Charlottesville Mural Project, the visibility of Wormsley’s quote from the street is paramount. The park sits across from Friendship Court, an affordable housing community, and so the work was carefully considered for its potential audience. “If you look at the current situation with gentrification in Charlottesville, you see they are actively, within that community, fighting for their right to be there,” says Simple. “So the idea of being able to see that wasn’t anything more for me than a way to be able to say ‘I see you.’”
While Simple acknowledges that the mural itself can’t change the struggles of families in Friendship Court, he knows the power of the work is in how it activates the community. The Ix mural was made not by a single artist but by 2022 Soul of Cville attendees, who had the opportunity to participate in group painting sessions. The artwork features a dotted outline of an Airstream, as it was initially to be a community-led ideas board for what the vehicle should look like, but clearly that shape couldn’t contain the enthusiasm of the artwork’s many contributors.
“The mural stands out to me because we did it together,” says Khalilah Jones, an Ix Art Park board member and image consultant.
“I was one of the first people to get to paint on that wall, and it felt liberating,” says Jones, who painted the words “Phoenix Rising” and “Stronger, wiser, better” on the wall as a reference to overcoming the deadly Unite the Right rally, which marked its fifth anniversary the same weekend as the festival. But like many local events, Soul of Cville and the Charlottesville Mural Project sought to uplift the community on a somber weekend. “That was what my theme was because of August 12, about resilience and unity and rising up from ashes and coming back strong, better, and wiser.”
“They were all painting on that wall and acknowledging that, being Black, we have things to offer, we have a presence, and we’re not going anywhere,” says Jones. “And we’re to be celebrated just like the rest of the world is to be celebrated. And here’s a mural to remind you of it.”
There’s a more abstract idea behind the mural, however, something that speaks to the nature of arts institutions and of public art itself. As executive director of The Bridge, Simple is particularly concerned with what role an arts organization plays in a community. Public art can sometimes impose, either by being built without local input or by being physically obtrusive. The many Confederate monuments that have dotted the South are painful examples of this, as artwork that antagonizes and ignores communities. But, in other cases, even galleries can be unwelcome and considered agents of gentrification. Repairing that communication breakdown is key to Simple’s philosophy.
“I come into this position with the thought process that [if] you’re gonna put a mural somewhere, it can’t just be an endeavor between the institution and the artist, but it needs to be a conversation with the public as well about what’s going there,” says Simple, “because just two people can’t possibly parse out all the feelings one may have when they come to that public art.”
Simple was enamored with the arts from a young age. He was born in Chicago and grew up in Philadelphia, and as a child, his creative interests ran the gamut—he played saxophone, drew, and took up photography and theater, anything to express himself. And his parents encouraged his interest in the arts, which Simple considers an acknowledgment by them that “engaging with some clay or having to think about an idea and get it down on a piece of paper … are all these lessons that you can apply to the greater goals that you have in life.”
At a glance, Simple is a photographer. He earned his BFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago, a master of liberal arts from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, in addition to holding a photo teaching position at The New School in New York (along with appointments at Longwood and VCU). But as an artist, Simple has never settled on a single discipline, preferring instead to keep a practice that incorporates elements from all sorts of mediums and traditions.
“Anything really that comes to mind, I give myself the agency, like, ‘Hey, I wanna do that, I can be a painter,’” he says.
Simple’s belief in independent creative liberation is at the core of his character as a leader. He believes that arts institutions like The Bridge are just one part of a thriving artistic community in a city, rather than an epicenter where what he calls “capital-A” art happens. And he considers the new Ix mural to be an example of the kind of relationship he hopes to have with Charlottesville, by “bringing art to the public where they’re at, and making it accessible for them to be able to engage with. But also to make that engagement something that can be meaningful for the people that have to see it on a regular basis.”
So, as Simple puts it, when someone goes for a jog, or heads out to grab something to eat, they’ll see that message from the street: “There are Black people in the future.” And unlike a statue that glares down at them, or a massive wall painting done by a single hand, it’s a group effort designed to uplift. Instead of imposing or advertising or directing, the mural insists. It beckons, it encourages, it has a conversation with the viewer. And that’s its true power.