- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
New essential workers mural dedicated in downtown Lakeport
LAKEPORT, Calif. — A new public art installation in downtown Lakeport that celebrates essential workers was formally dedicated on Friday evening.
The new mural by Loch Lomond artist Emma Wakefield is located on the side of the Meals on Wheels Thrift Store at 120 N. Main St.
It portrays a sleeping boy, holding his stuffed rabbit, and tucked under a quilt, the blocks of which illustrate the many professions that are critical to daily life and whose importance has been amplified by the pandemic: health care workers, police and firefighters, construction and utility workers, teachers, cooks, farmworkers, postal workers and store clerks.
Wakefield started painting the mural on May 16, completing it a week later.
It’s the latest of several murals that now decorate the city’s downtown as part of an effort to create more public art throughout Lake County.
“This was the coolest community effort I’ve ever seen,” said Barbara Clark, executive director of the Lake County Arts Council.
She said many groups quickly came together with the Arts Council to get the project off the ground, including the Lake Family Resource Center, city of Lakeport, Lake County Rural Arts Initiative, the Lakeport Senior Center and Lakeport Main Street Association.
Mayor Pro Tem Mireya Turner noted the speed of the project coming together and being completed.
She said it expresses appreciation for those who work for the community.
Clark told Lake County News that they still have about half of the $8,000 to raise to cover the mural’s cost.
Tax-deductible, charitable donations may be made to the Lake County Arts Council at
https://lakearts.org/essential-worker-appreciation-mural-project/.
After Wakefield cut a ceremonial ribbon provided by the Lake County Chamber, Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado read a dedication poem.
Guardado’s poem spoke to the work of the people portrayed in the mural and their contributions.
She said that nature may be saying it’s time to reap what has been sown.
In response, her poem ended with the voice of the people who continued to work as COVID-19 shut down the world: “Not if we can help it.”
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