Madonna and Child on Calhoun

By Fredrick McKissack
Of Fort Wayne Ink Spot

In Christian iconography, the Madonna and Child is a powerful image of a mother’s love and tender care of her child, the incarnation of God. The Messiah. Its earliest depictions can be found in the Catacombs of Rome and date to the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The latest depiction is on a wall at 2028 S. Calhoun Street.

Paid for by an unidentified benefactor, local muralists Teresa Yarbrough and Ron Lewis spent more than three weeks creating “Blessed among women,” a nod to the Hail Mary prayer in Roman Catholicism. The two worked last year with Thepolis Smith and Lyndy Bazile in painting the vibrant “Truth” mural at 918 E. Pontiac St.

Tarbrough, a Concordia Lutheran High School grad and Air Force vet, has always been creative. However, art as a career was out of the question. Now, with several commissions, Tarbrough is looking forward to becoming an even stronger muralist.

There’s not much time to rest for Tarbrough. The four artists will soon be working on a mural on the west wall of Foundation One Unity Barber Shop on Oxford St. Yarborough has a new commission for another wall on Oxford.

Ink Spot snagged a quick interview with her just a few weeks after she and Lewis finished the mural.

Ink Spot: The Madonna and Child is a well-known icon in Christianity and art. Were you looking at a particular style when you started your early process (ie., sketches)?

Yarbrough: No, not really, but it’s interesting because a lot of artists do work that way. You know, I just knew what I wanted to do, and I thought the bigger the better because it just grabs your eye.

Ink Spot: How do you work on such a large wall?

Yarbrough: Technology has made my life so much easier in making a mural. I came up with my design on my iPhone application. I have a projector. Now, this is the big part: You project the image directly from the phone (or iPad) to the wall. You take the color away and project the line on the wall. Your wall becomes the canvas and you get on the scissor lift and start drawing. And that takes place at night.

Ink Spot: It sounds easy, but…

Yarbrough: —Oh, we had quite a few challenges! (Laughs) I couldn’t have gotten this done without my partner, Ron Lewis. He’s a major artist. We had no access to electricity. We had no access to water. We had to get a generator, and we had to hire out to do the power washing.

Ink Spot: Hollywood and literature show us the artist furiously working the studio. But muralists are, for the most part, in public view. Do you find it distracting?

Yarbrough: It’s enjoyable, actually. Murals are more of a community thing. And the more I work on them, the more I understand that it’s an experience. It’s nice and it’s humbling at the same time. I got to know people as they inquired about what we were doing. One of the big things coming out of this is that a lot of young people showed interest, even just stopping what they were doing and helping us. One young woman, I think it was one of Ron’s former students, stopped by and helped us for a few hours. This is exactly what [our benefactor] has envisioned, to uplift the community. As soon as we started putting paint on the wall that started happening. It really was a unique experience.

Ink Spot: An artist may have some intention when working, but the viewer interprets. That said, what do you hope people come away with when viewing “Blessed among women”?

Yarbrough: I would hope that it's the same immediate feeling l have. For me, as a Black woman, it makes me feel uplifted. This is an uplifting message, there's hope. I'm a Christian, so this project means a lot to me, that I’m doing something good and that I'm spreading hope, that there's a message that you’re loved and that God is in control. For me, that's what I want people to see.