Published articles about the Hunger Has No Color mural

Artists reunite to restore West Side ‘Hunger’ mural

Richard Schletty is one of three artists who created the mural in 1985. Each have been working under the hot summer sun to restore it. (photo by Tim Spitzack)

By Tim Spitzack, editor
August 2024 issue of St. Paul Voice, published July 23, 2024

When artists Armando Gutiérrez G., John Acosta and Richard Schletty gathered in 1985 to create the 60-foot-wide by 12-foot-high “Hunger Has No Color” mural on the south wall of the Captain Ken’s Foods building, little did they know they would be called upon nearly 40 years later to restore the artwork for future generations. Bue that’s what’s happening this summer. Over the past several weeks, the trio has been laboring under the hot sun to restore the mural to its original grandeur. They originally used family and friends as some of the subjects, so the images are particularly meaningful to them.

The restoration project stemmed from the need to repair the “canvas” of the mural – the brick wall on which it is painted. The building has a flat roof and rain and ice have coated the mural over the years due to a gap between the building and its gutter. As a result, paint was peeling in several places and mortar was crumbling between some cinder blocks. When building owners John and Mike Traxler, brothers and co-owners of Captain Ken’s, realized chat the wall needed repair, they dug deep into their files and found the artists’ contact information. Remarkably, all three still live in the area and were available to help.

An example of how the elements had damaged the mural.

Captain Ken’s financed the building repairs of $3,400, which included installing a heavy-duty gutter above the mural and sealing the roof edge flashing. They contributed an additional $3,400 toward art materials, equipment rental fees and artists’ labor. Some of their employees even pitched in to caulk cracks and assist in other ways. The majority of the $17,000 needed to restore the mural was funded through a $13,600 Neighborhood STAR Year-Round Grant by the City of St. Paul.

When the mural was created in 1985, the portion of the building housing it was owned by Emergency Fund Service, now known as Second Harvest Heartland. The nonprofit cobbled together funding from three different sources to commission the artists to create a mural designed to raise awareness of the issue of hunger. Rather than use bright, vibrant colors, as is common for many murals, the artists used dark brown and white paint to create a grayscale effect, giving the mural a more somber tone. They worked on it for nearly four months. Today, they anticipate they will spend half that time to essentially repaint the entire mural.

This is not the first time Acosta and Schletty have helped restore the mural. Gutiérrez was not able to be reached in the fall of 2010 when the other two joined forces to freshen up and restore weather-damaged areas of the mural. That project was financed by Captain Ken’s, The City of St. Paul Cultural STAR program and the former Riverview Economic Development Association.

A reception to celebrate the restoration is expected to be held sometime in late August or early September. View the mural at 107 East Colorado St., St. Paul. For more details, visit hungerhasnocolor.com

Link to above St. Paul Voice article: stpaulpublishing.com/artists-reunite-to-restore-west-side-hunger-mural/
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Muralismo in St. Paul (excerpt)

by Lizeth Gutierrez
Published September 1, 2022
Source: https://www.mnopedia.org/thing/muralismo-st-paul
PDF download: Muralismo in St. Paul – MNopedia – www.mnopedia.org

Public art created during the late 1960s and early 1970s responded to the destruction of America’s inner cities. Chicanos painted murals in their neighborhoods to express their cultural pride, to protest injustice, and to celebrate their aesthetic values. While many of the first Chicano murals painted on St. Paul’s West Side are now lost, murals continue to reflect the community’s growth and progress…

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, local murals evolved from an exclusive narrative of Chicano ethnic pride to a more inclusive one. While the area remained an immigrant neighborhood well into the 2000s, it supported a growing population of Puerto Ricans and Cubans as well as other immigrant groups from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The first non-Chicano-style mural painted in St. Paul’s West Side was “Hunger Has No Color” (1985). Commissioned by the West Side Food Bank and painted by artists (John Acosta, Richard Schletty and Armando Gutierrez) from different ethnicities, the mural brought attention to the worldwide struggle against poverty and showcased the power of diversity.

Making District Del Sol: The Murals of Saint Paul’s West Side (excerpt)

by Jenna Frances Harris, May 2008
Source: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/history_honors/2/
PDF download: Making District Del Sol – The Murals of Saint Paul’s West Side.pdf

Images of a Diverse and Racially Harmonious West Side

Works which depicted the neighborhood’s diversity of residents living together harmoniously became particularly popular in the mid 80s through the 90s.  First with “Hunger Has No Color” and with “The Heroes” mural following, West Side art began to depict multi-racial solidarity and highlight the community’s strength in diversity.   Chicano murals influenced the diversity projects stylistically by referencing histories and places before immigration to Minnesota; however, in contrast, those painted in the 90s showed a wide range of ethnicities brought together by the West Side community.  Acosta notes that subject matter shifted, “because the artists have changed. They have come from different backgrounds.” Unlike the small Chicano artist enclave of the 70s and 80s, in the 90s West Side muralists were diverse in background and style.

The first mural painted in the West Side that did not portray exclusively images of Mexico was “Hunger Has No Color” (Fig. 3) in 1985.  Commissioned by the West Side Food Bank and painted by the ethnically mixed artists, John Acosta, Richard Schletty and Armando Gutierrez the mural became one of the first non-Chicano styled murals that actively presented strength in diversity. These artists painted a scene that depicted, “people from different backgrounds working together to eliminate hunger and poverty.”  Although originally intending to paint the worldwide struggle against poverty, using emaciated figures with bloated stomachs, eventually the artists decided to portray a local conflict.

The black and white mural starkly differentiates itself from the earlier scenes of colorful Aztec warriors and Mexican mythology because it portrays 27 actual West Side residents, coming together through a commitment to feeding the community.   In contrast with the Chicano murals of the previous decade, which celebrated a long ago history in a faraway country, “Hunger Has No Color” changes West Side’s artistic focus from an earlier one of ethnic pride to images of a diverse but unified community. The realism and lack of color adds to the weight of the mural’s message. Now one of the most recognized West Side artworks because of its style, the mural stands out as “stark but not grim.  The piece has a gritty, photographic feel that is uncommon to the more florid murals of West Saint Paul.” The artists, who were trained in realism painted in that style which was popularized in the 60s and 70s.  Scholars note that New Realism “at the very least and often at the most these were displays of craftsmanship.  But they might be turned to social commentary… The effect was bold and had the high visibility desirable for murals.  The strong contrasts intensified the three-dimensional patterns.”

Acosta explained his shift in subject matter as a response to some viewers who “saw the Aztec painting and said I don’t relate to that… You know when you are doing murals you want to create something [the community] can feel good about and get connected to.” The artists’ use of West Side faces made the mural and its message specific to the West Side community and their concerns. “Hunger Has No Color” allowed muralists and residents to look at their community and begin to address issues that directly affected their neighborhood.

West Side Story: Mural, mural on the wall (excerpt)

Paul Levy
Star Tribune
Published July 23, 2002
PDF download: West Side Story: Mural, mural on the wall.pdf

It is a West Side story depicted on canvases of brick and cinderblock, in a language that any visitor to St. Paul’s District Del Sol can appreciate.

Just follow the neighborhood’s two dozen murals. Murals on the walls of restaurants, markets, a hair salon, even an overpass. Murals showing Mayan warriors, eagles and pyramids. Murals that honor Aztec weavers, the environment and feeding the hungry. Murals celebrating a community.

You don’t need a map or compass to find District Del Sol. Just follow the sun that never sets on the West Side of St. Paul — the sleepy-eyed sun that gleams knowingly from the George Street overpass overlooking Robert Street.

“When we first began painting murals on these buildings, we wanted to show our abilities,” said artist John Acosta . “Instead, we told the story of a community.”

Drive from downtown St. Paul across the Robert Street bridge to the outskirts of this highly Hispanic neighborhood where, in some stores, English is spoken as a second language, if at all. The West Side has long been a melting pot where Germans, Irish, Jewish, Lebanese and other European immigrants settled, as have Mexicans, other Hispanics and, more recently, Hmong people.

Richard Schletty, left, and John Acosta painted “Hunger Has No Color” on the Captain Ken’s Foods plant in 1985 with Armando Gutierrez. (Photo by Stormi Greener, Star Tribune)

But if you really want to know who lives in this neighborhood, stop the moment you’ve passed the Captain Ken’s Foods plant on Robert Street and look at the mural that stretches across the building’s cinderblock wall.

Titled “Hunger Has No Color” and painted in 1985 by Acosta, Richard Schletty and Armando Guitierrez , it is void of the brilliant hues that highlight other area murals. But if this mural lacks color, it certainly doesn’t lack passion.

Painted in white and dark primer paint, the mural shows 27 people — real people, and all former neighborhood residents — sharing food from 12 baskets. Among those portrayed are Schletty’s grandparents, his son, Mark, and Acosta’s daughter, Santina , as well as the artists themselves.

The subjects were photographed. Then black-and-white sketches of their images were painted on the building wall. The artists planned to color those images, recalled Dick Goebel , then executive director of the St. Paul Harvest Food Bank , which paid the artists $4,000 to create the mural.

“They started with this brown background and people kept telling them how remarkable it looked,” Goebel said. “So they kept it that way and made a statement, really communicating our message to the outside.

“That kind of communication is part of what the phenomenon with murals on the West Side was about.”

Topic of interest

It flourished in the late ’70s, with local artist Pablo Basques’ paintings of the warrior Cuauhtmoc along the outside wall of the El Amanecer restaurant and of the Aztec weavers on E. George Street and of the Acosta-Carlos Menchaca collaboration “Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe” by Westside Haircare . In 1980, Acosta, Menchaca and Frank Sanchez created the “Aztec City” at Morgan’s Mexican and Lebanese Foods.

“It became a topic of interest for folks,” said Anne Briseno, former director of St. Paul’s Riverview Economic Development Association (REDA) and now an assistant to Mayor Randy Kelly.

“Public art was a good component in our effort to revitalize the neighborhood,” said Briseno, who came to REDA in 1991. She says she was particularly struck by Basques’ 1979 “Midwest Canto al Pueblo,” painted outside the Concord Drug Store. “It meant ‘the cry of the village, the call of the village, the village speaks out.’ And that’s what District Del Sol was doing through this art.”

Schletty, the artist who has lived much of his life on the West Side, said, “It’s a pride thing. It is a way for artists to show their skills, tell different stories, offer different visions, tell about the culture of the West Side. It’s a nice way to say we like our community.”

In recent years, the torch and paintbrush have been passed as Teens Networking Together, a neighborhood youth group, has collaborated with established area artists. With Craig David, for example, they created murals such as “The Heroes of Freedom, Justice and Peace” at the El Burrito Mercado on Concord Street. And many of the older murals have been restored, often by the original artists.

Other murals are gone. Acosta estimates the average lifespan of an outdoor mural to be no longer than 10 years. Weather has been the most obvious culprit. But so has progress.

Art taking new forms

As buildings are sold or restored, murals have disappeared, said Julie Eigenfeld , current REDA director. In some cases, the murals were painted to cover up walls that needed to be rebuilt or patched.

But while building owners are encouraged to reconstruct where murals once glistened, area artists are anything but discouraged. Murals inside buildings are becoming more common throughout St. Paul.

So are sculptures. David, who painted several murals along West Side buildings and on the viaduct at George Street, is among the artists creating sculptures for the neighborhood. Lauded for the “Journey of the River and the Sun” environmental gateway sculpture and landscape at Concord and Wabasha Sts., David also created the stone gateway and garden across from the Boca Chica restaurant on Concord in District Del Sol.

“I want my art to be out on the street, with the people,” he said. “To me, that’s an honor, to be able to help serve the community.”

Eigenfeld would like to see more diversity in future Del Sol art. But few, if any, complain about what has graced the neighborhood the past two decades.

“It’s better than graffiti, that’s for sure,” said Herbie Howe, owner of the Cozy Cantina restaurant. The mural outside the Cozy Cantina was done by a group of elementary-school children, with Howe’s blessing.

“They came in and said they have something that will keep in touch with the rest of the community,” Howe said. “I’m not a real art admirer. You won’t catch me in any museums. But I know what’s important. And something like this adds flavor to the neighborhood.”

The Writing on the Wall (excerpt)

Divining the future of a city one mural at a time

by Keith Harris
published in City Pages: September 12, 2001

A novice in the world of public art, I recently undertook a monthlong survey of as many murals in Minneapolis and St. Paul as my eyes could take in, with just a few guidebooks and the helpful advice of experts guiding my forays. Below are about 20 of the works that stood out, accompanied by a mélange of my impressions, the artists’ commentary, and whatever other material seemed interesting. (Also, City Pages’ David Schimke visits a studio the size of a hangar where a team of Mexican and American artists are creating a mosaic that will go up on a wall in Minneapolis’s Longfellow neighborhood just a few weeks hence.) By the way, I am by no means claiming that these are the “best” murals in the Twin Cities, and just because I omitted a piece doesn’t mean it isn’t noteworthy. So let’s just stop that flurry of letters to the editor starting “How could you overlook the puzzle-like, negative-image lettering on the side of the U of M studio arts building?” and “What kind of idiot would fail to mention Roger Nelson’s work on the Kmart building on Lake Street?” This piece is meant as an introduction, not a conclusion. In any case, these existing murals are now part of the psychological landscape of the Cities…

HUNGER HAS NO COLOR
344 S. Robert Street • St. Paul, MN • 1985
John Acosta, Richard Schletty, Armando Gutierrez

Tucked away in its own corner of the metropolis, St. Paul’s West Side is, in many ways, a world unto itself. It’s a neighborhood you aren’t likely to stumble across–a place where a green left-turn arrow doesn’t necessarily mean you have the right of way. (When turning left from Concord to State at the five-way intersection at the heart of this district, you’ve got to yield to traffic from George Street–regardless of what it says in your drivers-ed manual.) And it’s a spot whose Latino heritage has been nurtured and revitalized, causing the core to be renamed District del Sol.

Under the purview of the Riverview Economic Development Association, residents and businesses are deliberately cultivating the aesthetic of the neighborhood. Several murals from the Seventies have been repainted. Several others, now badly faded, are being painted over. In the future, REDA intends to place works on those walls that promise maximum longevity for public art.

One of the most striking of the images that remains is a black, white, and gray mural that adorns a food bank just south of the river. Where most murals attempt to dazzle with bright splashes of primaries and pastels, Hunger Has No Color takes its title literally. “All of us had training in classical realism,” explains painter John Acosta. “We wanted to stay in the tradition of the old masters – pictures of our wives and children and some people who actually work for the food bank.” Stark but not grim, the piece has a gritty, photographic feel that is uncommon among the more florid murals of West St. Paul.

source: CityPages.com (ceased publication on October 29, 2020)