A special kind of wealth: Village’s mural project involves, celebrates community
On Saturday, the residents of East Dundee will have completed a project that would make Tom Sawyer proud. In fact, they’ll do him one better.
Mark Twain’s fictional adolescent rascal famously got himself out of a chore by inventing imaginative ways to persuade neighborhood children that whitewashing a fence was no chore at all but a fun way to spend a summer afternoon. His episode concludes with his friends completing the job on the fence — and having given a host of objects for the privilege.
“When the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth,” Twain wrote.
East Dundee was hardly poor and poverty stricken when the East Dundee Arts Council launched a project to run 140 feet of fence along Railroad Street into colorful celebratory mural, but its finished project certainly will add a special kind of wealth to the community.
“It’s going to be a really excellent event for community engagement,” project designer Elgin artist Kathryn Eli told reporter Alicia Fabbre for a story this week. “We all feel extremely grateful to be able to be part of this project and to share art with a community that has shown that they really appreciate it.”
The mural will cover seven panels. Six have been painted by area artists and a seventh was outlined by artists and will be painted by residents. On Saturday, residents will gather to paint a comic strip-style panel that pays tribute to the village’s past and future.
East Dundee trustees Andy Sauder and Tricia Saviano, who co-chair the East Dundee Arts Council, expect Saturday’s work to complete the project and cited, in Saviano’s words, “so much positive feedback.”
As well there should be. Towns throughout the region, including West Chicago, Wheaton, Aurora and more, are finding that local artwork has a way of evoking a community’s unique spirit with vibrant lively colors and images that would marvel Tom Sawyer and his friends.
This project will make the third for East Dundee. The first, produced in 2023, was a painting offering a special view of the Fox River. Last year, Eli created a stained glass-inspired design featuring native flowers on an exterior wall at village hall.
The current project anticipates the day when the fence adjacent to a former lumberyard is demolished to make way for new development. Each panel will be preserved and moved to new locations within the village.
In Twain’s description, his young hero’s project taught him that “it was not such a hollow world, after all.” Projects like this in East Dundee echo that reminder, and add to the observation that — like colorful imaginative designs compared to simple whitewash — it is a very special world indeed.