An opportunity for any professional artist to showcase their work is a dream come true. Yet when that opportunity is abruptly destroyed, it can be a nightmare. And a nightmare seems to have manifested for Judy Taylor ever since Governor Paul LePage ordered the removal of a mural in Maine’s labor department building.
On Oct. 24, Judy Taylor, the artist who was picked to paint a mural in the Maine Department of Labor building gave a lecture at Plymouth State University.
At the Silver Center for the Arts, Taylor took the audience through her artistic process and how she narrowed down what she would paint to certain crucial moments in Maine’s labor history.
“It was important to incorporate gender and race into the mural,” Taylor said as she showed the audience slide by slide ideas and means she used to create the mural.
Through her artistic process the mural became a historical depiction of Maine’s labor movements. Each of the eleven sections represented a piece of the history, from children in textile mills, the 1937 Auburn shoe strike, to the revered Francis Perkins for her work in the state. Painted in a black and white vignette, the faces of these historical events stood out in busy background of the past. The mural was hung in a small waiting room in Maine’s Department of Labor which made it “very in your face and noticeable,” as Taylor pointed out.
Showing the audience how much time, thought, and energy was put into her work made Governor LePage’s decision to have the mural taken down all the more heartfelt.
Taylor pointed out that the LePage administration has flip-flopped on reasons why the removal was carried out. At the beginning, the reason was because LePage wanted to be neutral toward businesses, and now it is because the funds for the mural were improperly used. Yet the money used to subsidize Taylor was given to Maine by the US Labor Department. The US Labor Department back Taylor and has demanded that the mural is put back.
Many lawsuits are pending against the governor to reinstall the mural. When asked how likely it is that the mural is reinstalled, Taylor’s answer was pessimistic. “I doubt it,” she said simply. On why the decision took place, Taylor said, “Frankly my opinion is he [LePage] made a rash decision.”
The lecture was part of the Saul O. Sidore Lecture Series. This year’s topic for the series is the gap between the rich and poor. The next lecture will be on income inequality in the US from the co-founder of The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner. Kuttner will be on campus Nov. 7 in the Smith Recital Hall. With national protest on economic disparities these topics come to Plymouth in a timely fashion.
Taylor’s hour-long lecture focused mainly on her artist practices, rather than the political aspects of the controversy. Taking the controversy away, we are simply left with an artist’s hard work, sitting, gathering dust in a basement, locked away, which many feel is a disservice to the public.