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The women gather in the back room of an art supply store in East Brainerd. They sit amid long, flat art tables covered with brown paper.
The artists – 15 altogether – have been working for more than a year on a mural that tells the story of a barren Chattanooga cityscape being reborn. Some plan the artwork, some paint it and some make adornments from crinkled deli paper. The nearly finished mural is a riot of sunflowers and thistle blooms.
Together, the women have created a work of art to inspire survivors of human trafficking, for whom the actual landscape is often bleak. Studied left to right, their mural turns from gray to green to magenta to shades of yellow.
“We started with a desolate urban world,” explains Sandra Washburn, instructor of a mixed-media art class and project leader. “Then, just as women are taken away from the [trafficking] lifestyle and start to feel better, the mural begins to bloom.”
The mural is made to represent the path from darkness to light, like a survivor recovering from trauma.