Charlottesville Mural Project

Rising above: New Sahara Clemons mural depicts the strength of black women

On the afternoon of the year’s hottest day so far, Sahara Clemons stands at a concrete wall about three times her height, a roll of masking tape around her wrist, a brush in the other hand, cans of paint and a cup of melting bubble tea at her feet.

As she puts the finishing touches on her mural for the Charlottesville Mural Project, Clemons, who grew up in the city and recently finished her first year at the Rhode Island School of Design, periodically steps back to consider her work.

A larger-than-life black woman reclines across the full width of the wall, her face illuminated by the warm, intense, orange-pink light radiating from a lightning bolt she holds above her. She has the air of a goddess, powerful and at rest.

Clemons found inspiration for the piece in her mother, Eboni Bugg. Bugg, who currently serves as director of programs for the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, is a licensed clinical social worker, a family reunification advocate, and a yoga instructor who has worked to make mental health resources more available and accessible to women of color in the area. “She has shown me a lot” about what it takes to become a leader in a very racially polarized community such as Charlottesville, says Clemons. “That really affected me.”

While the mural isn’t an exact likeness, Clemons says it is most certainly a representation of her mother’s essence.

She drew inspiration from the lightning bolt tattoo on Bugg’s wrist. “She talks about it as empowerment…and empowerment in the ability to rest,” says Clemons. “Life is tiring for a black woman, and we don’t always get that luxury [of rest], whether or not we are in a leadership position. There’s [always] a level at which we are having to uphold some sort of position, some sort of level of expectation that sometimes goes beyond our capability.”

To complement the lightning bolt, Clemons incorporated clouds (“they are about contemplation…rising above, heaven, the ethereal”) and light. A golden yellow halo circles the woman’s head and a sun emanates from the earring on her earlobe. Her dress looks as though it is composed of beams of light.

“I don’t usually put [the sun] in all of my work, but it’s specific to black women, to black girl magic,” says Clemons, and depicting that in this work was important to her. “There is a lot of invisibility that happens with black women, in Charlottesville and in general, that I wanted to combat,” she says.

This mural would be a powerful statement anywhere in the city, but its location—on the border of West Main Street and the historically black and now quickly gentrifying 10th and Page neighborhood—amplifies its message.

Above the mural is the recently built Standard apartment complex, which offers “lavish amenities” for UVA students. To its right, the new Tenth Street Warehouses retail development. Across the parking lot from the mural is the Westhaven public housing community, built in the 1960s to house (mostly black) people whose homes in the Vinegar Hill and Gospel Hill neighborhoods were razed by the city in the name of “urban renewal.”

Clemons didn’t select the site, but it’s significant to her. She and Bugg once lived in the neighborhood, and this afternoon, looking at the landscape around her, she can’t help but acknowledge how much it’s changed.

She designed the mural a month ago, and says the image has taken on new meaning in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer, and the resulting protests against racial injustice.

“It’s different now. It’s challenging to think about it in terms of police brutality and what that’s doing to the black community,” she says. “I hope that what this does is…present something different in terms of what’s happening within the black community.”

“I’m reminding [people] that there’s strength happening as well.”

A new look: Murals bring Harris Street history to life

Head south on Harris Street, cruise past Napa Auto Parts and Sarisand Tile. Hug the first curve in the road before The Habitat Store, and there on the left, above the roof of Intrastate Pest Control, the dusty rumble of Allied Concrete cement mixers in the near distance, you’ll see it: a mural.

Spools of thread, a railroad crossing signal and an old-fashioned steam locomotive, a hand holding a hammer ready to strike an anvil: Icons of a bygone era are juxtaposed with a modern, almost architectural sprinkling of bright orange, yellow, blue, and red rectangles.

It’s one of two new murals painted on the building at 1216 Harris St. Together, they’re meant “to give some recognition to the industrial history of the neighborhood, and the people who work here and have their livelihoods,” says Dr. Martin Chapman, owner of the building and founder of Indoor Biotechnologies, who funded the pair of murals.

A few years ago, Chapman heard Steve Thompson from Rivanna Archaeological Services give a talk about the history of the neighborhood, including the Silk Mills Building at number 700, Rose Hill Plantation, and Booker T. Washington Park—all referenced on the second of the two new murals.

Chapman wanted to bring more awareness to that history, and to how Harris Street is presently home to a variety of industries—Intrastate Pest Control is right next door to male birth control developer Contraline, which is next to an entrance to Allied Concrete. He also wanted to bring public art into the neighborhood and knew just the person for the job: Richmond- based artist Hamilton Glass.

In the last half decade or so, Glass has made a significant contribution to Richmond’s mural boom. At last tally, he had painted more than 150 public murals throughout the city (he’s stopped counting).

Glass grew up in West Philadelphia, surrounded by public art. Graffiti was everywhere, and in the 1980s—when he was a kid—initiatives such as Mural Arts Philadelphia helped transform the City of Brotherly Love into what some say is the unofficial mural capital of the world.

Though Glass was a creative kid who appreciated and admired the murals and did plenty of paintings of his own, he never thought he’d be the one to paint a mural. The opportunity to do so came during the Great Recession of 2007-2009, when Glass, who trained as an architect, lost his job and decided to focus on his art while he looked for another full-time gig. Someone saw his work and asked him if he wanted to do a mural.

It was then that he fell in love with the process. “The end result is for everyone else,” he says, but the process is for him—even when it involves standing on a roof during some of the hottest, sunniest days of the year (as it did for this particular project). “If murals were all snap your fingers, quick, make a good mural, I don’t think I’d be doing it,” he says.

Glass’ style shifts slightly from mural to mural—some are more realistic, others are dreamlike, or abstract. “I don’t want to put my style in a box,” he says, and the composition and execution of each mural depends on the content.

Hamilton Glass is one of the artists who has contributed to Richmond’s recent mural boom. Now, we have some of his work here in Charlottesville. Photo by Eze Amos

All of Glass’ murals have some sort of architectural element to them—the creation of space via shape and movement—and all of his murals are extremely colorful. “I’m really into color theory,” he says. Glass has also exhibited work at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Virginia Museum of History & Culture (where he met Chapman).

For the two murals at 1216 Harris St., Glass had complete creative control over the compositions, though he consulted with Chapman and with Thompson to get up to speed on the varied history of the neighborhood.

“My hope is that it raises some questions,” says Glass of his work on Harris Street. Some people might look at the pair of hands holding knitting needles wrapped in pink yarn and wonder where the knitting factory is (or, more accurately, was). He hopes others will wonder about the Rose Hill Plantation, and Google it when they get home. “If people are asking that question, to be honest, that’s a big thing,” says Glass. “Then people are looking into the neighborhood and what was here before now.”

Whenever possible, Glass gets local folks involved in the mural painting process. Once the image is laid out on the wall, he’ll tag sections and shapes with the colors so that other folks can fill them in. For the mural facing the parking lot (not the rooftop mural), Glass had some help from local chapters of the Wounded Warriors Project and the Boys & Girls Club. “If this mural is going to live in their community, why shouldn’t they have a stake in it?” asks Glass.

Perhaps that’s the Philly in him. “The power of art has really influenced me. I thought about the murals that I saw, growing up in Philadelphia, and they were all community-based,” he says, adding that being constantly surrounded by art helped him understand “the power that [lies] in creative placement.”

And if Glass can be, for at least one kid, the example he never had—the example of a working artist, making a living while making work that can have a positive effect on his community—he’s all for it.

“If I have a chance to get people involved in the power of art,” he says, “Why not?”