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Art, social work, and the importance of community
Local artist gathers students, faculty, and staff to create an inspirational mural in Peters Hall
On a cold Tuesday afternoon in February, the atrium in Peters Hall was filled with warmth, smiles, and friendly conversations when students, faculty, and staff came together for the “Art as a Form of Resistance” community event. Attendees gathered at tables, sharing brushes and dollops of paint on paper plates to create a permanent art installation that expresses the themes of equity, community, belonging, integrity, well-being, and balance.
“I love all of the energy in the atrium. The school felt alive,” says Professor Joan Blakey, director of the School of Social Work.
“We’re going through transition and change, but we’re here, and the school feels alive and vibrant.”
Conceived, designed, and hosted by local artist Thomasina TopBear, the mural event engaged 25 members of the School of Social Work community in the creation of a single mural on the east wall of the atrium. The 5-foot x 5-foot mural started out as 25 individual stenciled polytab squares, which were each painted by a different individual and assembled to create the complete mural.
Meaningful process, meaningful message
While School of Social Work community members who participated in the project expressed overwhelmingly positive feelings about participating in the event, the reasons behind their joy and the meaning that the event had for each person were as varied and unique as the leaves on a tree.
“For me this mural represents community,” Blakey says. “In one of the first retreats with faculty and staff this year, one of the workgroups described the school as a tree. They used the image of a tree because of the school’s deep roots in the community, and the branches and leaves represent different people. I didn’t tell Thomasina what to do, so it was fascinating that her design incorporated the image of a tree.”
“For me, it means being a part of something bigger than myself,” says Alexis Peterson, a first-year MSW student. “It means you’re really doing good.”
“I think sometimes we use the word belonging and there’s no depth behind it,” says Liz Fronsoe, Phoenix Learning Exchange (PLX) coordinator at the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare. “I really hope that when people come in this building, they feel they belong here because we share the values that honor them as a human, that honor their dignity, that honor their culture, that honor just everything that’s unique about them as an individual, regardless of what group or groups they have a piece of identity tied to.”
In her role at the School of Social Work, Fronsoe supports professionals working in the child welfare system, as well as professionals in adjacent systems who work with adolescents. At the end of each eight-month PLX training, Fronsoe brings in an artist to help trainees reflect on the meaning of everything they have learned.
“We hope the artists can lead us through some method to think about the juxtaposition between the work that we felt like we were doing, and then how that work changes or shifts because of the learning that we did together for eight months,” says Fronsoe.
Local artist Thomasina TopBear works with the School of Social Work community on a mural for the east wall of the Peters Hall atrium. Photos by Jairus Davis.
How art complements social work practice
Fronsoe is not the first social worker to turn to art as a way to better understand the principles of social work and improve understanding at the community level. In fact, the event was made possible by the Dr. Helen Q. Kivnick and Dr. Gary M. Gardner Fund for the Arts and Social Work at the University of Minnesota Foundation. A longtime gerontologist and faculty member at the School of Social Work, Kivnick incorporated the arts, mostly music, into the work she was doing, and she felt that the arts were integral to an understanding of human activity.
“She started an inner city program in St Paul called CitySongs, which ran for about 18 years,” Gardner says. “And she sang in her classes in the School of Social Work. In fact, Joan Blakey was a student here in 1997 and took Helen’s class. And Helen brought a guitar into the University and sang as part of her classes.”
In May 2020, when Peters Hall was closed due to the pandemic, Gardner and Kivnick established the fund as her legacy, to support an annual “Arts and Social Work” salon in the School of Social Work. This year’s event parallels the music that Kivnick chose for CitySongs, which focused on themes of love, equity, and justice.
A lasting memorial to meaningful community action
Unlike a live musical or theatrical performance, the mural project is proudly displayed in Peters Hall as a daily reminder of a community-wide creative process and the different meanings that individuals found in the mural.
“I liked how the artist described this mural,” says Elliot Finch, first-year MSW student. “They said the cottonwood tree represents galaxies or space. It makes me think about being a small part of a big universe, and that’s meaningful to me. I love that.”