Category: Murals

Visualizing Peace: A Work in Progress

Visualizing Peace: A Work in Progress Mural by BZTAT and Friends
“Visualizing Peace: A Work in Progress” Mural by BZTAT and Friends

Our world is full of images that bombard us with visualizations of violence, chaos and war. They come at us with a ferocity that cannot be ignored, demanding our attention and overwhelming our senses. Envisioning peace, however, is nuanced and subtle. Visualizations of peace do not clamor for our attention, rather, they require contemplation and deep reflection to be understood.

The paradoxical relationship between peace and conflict has intrigued me for years. When Molly Merryman, Ph.D., associate professor at Kent State University’s School of Peace and Conflict Studies (SPCS), invited me to collaborate on a project exploring this very topic, I jumped at the opportunity. I proposed a multi-tiered collaboration, inviting a group of high school students who regularly visited my studio through a grant from Art Possible Ohio, to join with Masters level students at SPCS, in creating a mural.

These high school students are far from ordinary. Confronted with a range of learning and behavioral challenges, they have faced life experiences many others have not—marked by trauma and conflict. For them, navigating peaceful conflict resolution is a daily effort, one that has made them thoughtful, resilient, and insightful. They wrestle with profound questions and offer perspectives that are both powerful and deeply personal. The SPCS students shared a similar depth of experience. Coming from African countries shaped by war, political unrest, and trauma, they, too, understood conflict intimately. Yet through this project, all the students came together as equals—united by a shared pursuit of peace and a collective vision brought to life through the mural.

Beginning in October 2024, we studied how artists throughout history have depicted peace and conflict. We explored how peace can be visually elevated amid chaos, using color, light, and texture to create contrast and subtlety. We drew, painted, told stories, and learned from one another. By the end of April 2025, the mural was complete.

Leading this group journey has challenged and inspired me. At times, the idea of peace felt naive, considering the turbulent changes facing our country as we endeavored through this process. This project has reaffirmed the importance of peacebuilding, however, showing that, through creativity and collaboration, peace is both possible and powerful, as a perpetual work in progress.

 

Special notes of interest:

Dove – Pays homage to Picasso’s “Dove of Peace” which was chosen as the emblem for the First International Peace Conference in Paris in 1949, and also, in contrast, to the artist’s moving anti-war painting, “Guernica”. The dove is both luminous and somewhat transparent, arising over the words “Chaos” and “Peace.”

Boat– Represents the collaborative journey of students, working to overcome obstacles and challenges in the pursuit of peace.

“4 dead in Ohio”– Commemorates the May 4, 1970 tragedy that inspired the legacy of the KSU School of Peace and Conflict Studies, reflecting on the iconic image of the tragedy and the musical lyrics by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
Student reading a book – Represents the meeting of students from different backgrounds learning together, showing that peace education is an important, ongoing process.

Vines, leaves and grass – Illustrates how growth continues despite destructive forces in the world, overcoming tragedy and restoring peace.
Houses and buildings in background – Represents community and safe places to call home.

Sun and sky – Represents the dawn of a new day.
Patterned border – Pays homage to two SPCS students from African countries, with patterns representing hope.

Cat – Pays homage to Tibs the Studio cat, and also to all of the pets who bring us peace.

See media about the mural on my press page.

Life is an Adventure!

BZTAT

Okey's Promise: Safe Animals – Safe Kids

Safe Animals Safe Kids

I am a mural artist. I like to create large scale public art that can be enjoyed by everyone, not just the select few people who make their way into a gallery or museum.

Most artists aspire to have their work shown in a gallery or museum. Not me. I would rather have my art seen on building on a city street where thousands can see it as they drive or walk by.

I also like to create art that has a purpose of motivating and inspiring people to make change in the world.

My artistic ideal is not exactly an easy path. Finding a way to finance public art with an altruistic purpose is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Typically, you have to submit laborious grant proposals or enter competitions to gain public art funding. Your chances are slim to none in such efforts, and your efforts are often judged by people who have no concept of what you hope to achieve.

If I take the typical route, it will take months to gain the funding, if I get it at all. There is a good chance that I would lose out to another worthy project, and my artistic vision would also be at risk of being altered by less visionary community leaders.

I have a passion and a vision with Okey’s Promise. It is a project that simply must be done.

I know that there are people who share my passion and are inspired by my vision. And I know that they can help me fulfill the vision. Are you one of them?

Are you intrigued enough to explore a bit more and join me in my artistic adventure?

Okey’s Promise is a public art project designed to create public awareness about the connections between animal abuse, child abuse and domestic violence.

These issues are deeply connect and need to be addressed together, not one in isolation of each other. When animals are suffering in a home or a community, children are likely to be suffering as well.

Yet merely sharing the facts doesn’t seem to get the point across.

Creating artwork that is highly visible to the community has a greater chance of connecting the dots for people. It is easy to ignore a fact sheet, but hard to dismiss a powerful public artwork that reaches out to you each day as you drive by it.

Please visit my Okey’s Promise website to learn more and to read about my unique plan for funding the project. You can also follow updates on Facebook.

Thanks. Your support means so much to me.

A Few Thoughts About Public Art…

Downtown Cats Mural
"Downtown Cats" Mural by BZTAT in Canton, OH

I am a big fan of public art.

I create it. I enjoy it when it is created by others in my own hometown. I seek it out in other cities to which I travel.

Why?

As an artist, I like to paint big.  I also like to include other people in both the creative process and the appreciation of my artwork.

As an arts enthusiast, I believe that art should be placed where everyone can experience it.

Lets face it. Only a small segment of the world goes to museums and collection galleries. A work of art that is located in a public place has the opportunity to touch and impact many more people.

As an enthusiast for community development, I recognize that public art makes a city more interesting, bringing more people to an area, enhancing its economic potential.

I think that more businesses should consider commissioning artwork for public view as a way to demonstrate their commitment to the economic development of their communities. (It is an added bonus that a public artwork with your brand’s name listed as the sponsor is very solid marketing.)

My city, Canton, Ohio, has an amazing display of public art in the downtown area. There are several large scale mural installations, painted trash cans and flower pots, large sculptures, etc.

It is even more amazing when you consider the fact that Canton has been beset by considerable economic hardship and unemployment during the same time frame that the Canton Arts District has sprung up. The passion of the artists, the county arts council (ArtsinStark), and the Canton Development Project has made it all happen in a relatively short amount of time.

And it has helped to revive a blighted area.

I frequently have out of town guests to our city stop by my studio and marvel at all the creativity here. Friends that I meet from all over the world through social media are astounded when they see and read about what is happening in Canton.

One would assume that the people of Canton would be busting with pride.

Many people are, but the critics and naysayers are there, loudly voicing their dismay.

I don’t get it, to be quite honest.

There are those who come from an academic and cultural perspective, claiming that there is no coordination and no review process for determining how public art gets commissioned and placed around town. Basically, if a building owner, funding body and an artist agree, and their are no architectural safety concerns, the work goes up.

There are also the wannabe big city “street artists” who are rebels without a cause, “tagging” public places with their version of graffiti art, pretending that there is some big “establishment” squelching their self expression.

The general public is surprisingly quiet on the whole matter.

To those critics on both sides of the issue, I say, GET A GRIP.

To the academics  — We are not New York City, for gosh sakes. It is not like we have to have masterpieces on every corner. (Although, to be honest, I think some of our public art pieces could hold their own in some of the cities around the world known as art centers.) And it is not like we have any works that test the sense of public decency. We do have quality work that is interesting to the people of Canton and out of town visitors.

To the wannabe street taggers — Grow up! Graffiti art is SO YESTERDAY. And no one is standing in your way of expressing yourself. Break the rules of art, but follow the law. If it isn’t your building and you don’t permission to express yourself on it, find a place where you do have permission.

Or else you can join the ranks of those who create prison art.

We need to have creative freedom, but we also have to have some degree of limits to maintain order. Every notable center of creative energy is going to have some tension between the two concepts.

But we could easily throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We could overreach and put too many regulations in place, which would put an end to this burgeoning, yet still fragile arts renaissance that is emerging in Canton.

We could allow a bunch of thugs to spoil it all for everyone by falling for their “bad boy” claims of creative restriction.

Lets just use some common sense, shall we?