Envision a medieval fortress, a bright river flowing beside it. An old European town will soon be completed on the opposite bank. A castle rises in the background.
These postcard scenes are taking shape on a huge wall in Lincoln Square, where two artists and some high school students are transforming 2,800 square feet of gray into a sprawling German countryside.
In two weeks, the mural on the concrete canvas at 4662 N. Lincoln Ave. will be complete.
”We`re doing a community-development project,” said Fred Montano, director of City at Work, a new program that will use high school students to transform bare walls into murals throughout the city. ”I`ve always wanted to express my feelings toward community development because I feel we really, really need it.”
In this first of what he hopes will be many similar murals, Montano`s partner is Lothar Sanchez-Speer, a native of Stuttgart, Germany, and a resident of the Lincoln Square neighborhood. Sanchez-Speer, a professional artist who said he specializes in murals and portraits, designed the 96-by-30- foot painting.
Montano, 39, and Sanchez-Speer, 28, chose the German scene to mirror the feel of Lincoln Square, which is dominated by German shops. Also depicted in the mural are people working in the town.
”The theme behind this project is to show homeowners how their community can look if they take time to fix it up,” said Montano, who lives in Mexico during the winter and Chicago during the summer.
If the project expands into other neighborhoods, he said, it will strive to ”reflect the ethnic background of the community.”
The project ”combines social thinking with the arts,” Sanchez-Speer said.
Work began about four weeks ago, Montano said. The mural is being painted according to a grid system that allows the artists to progress square-by-square.
Plans are to dedicate the mural during German Day festivities in September, Montano said.
Sanchez-Speer settled on the mural`s design, a compilation of scenes from around Germany, after consulting with neighborhood residents for three months. He and Montano then visited Chicago high schools to find talented art students who would be willing to volunteer their services.
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About 15 students expressed an interest, Montano said, and all were invited to help. That number has dwindled to eight, with some going off on vacation and others taking summer jobs. Those who remain, Montano said, work five to six hours each day.
”It seems so huge, but when you`re working square-by-square, it relaxes you, although sometimes when you step back and look at it you get dizzy with what you`re doing,” said Ryan Duff, 17, a junior at Amundsen High School who lives just across the elevated train tracks from the mural.
”For me the learning experience of painting with Lothar and my name on a plaque will be my payment.”
The other students are Luz Lopez, Sagrario Aguirre, Saul Aguirre and Ignacio Bernal of Clemente High School; Mike Biuciuc and Cesar Martinez of Amundsen; and Nicole Sneddon of Senn Academy.
The wall, which had a mural on it until four years ago, was donated by Northern Home Furnishings, the store that the wall helps to enclose. Money for supplies and a nominal salary for the two artists came from the German Day Association and private businesses in the area, Montano said.
Helmut Bantle, manager of Northern Home Furnishings and also a native of the Stuttgart region, said he originally wanted the space to carry an advertisement for his shop.
”But I didn`t want just an advertisement on it,” Bantle said. ”I thought it would look too simple. So I thought of maybe an old European town. Montano ”understood exactly what I wanted done with it. I think this will help me, and I think it will do a lot for the neighborhood.”
Sanchez-Speer did manage to work the modern-day store into his mural, across the river from the fortress and around the corner from an old cathedral.