To recognize and celebrate Pride Disability Month in July, freestanding murals will be created at The Arc in Winnebago, Boone and Ogle counties.
Once completed, the mural will be displayed in The Ark building at 2820 McFarland Road in Rockford.
The nonprofit provides support and advocacy to more than 500 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities each year throughout Northern Illinois.
The mural will be created on four 4-foot by 8-foot pieces of plywood that will be glued together to form one large image.
Tyler Yomantas, art and marketing coordinator for The Ark, designed the mural and chose a color palette of green, blue, white, gold and red to represent the colors of the Disability Pride flag, but the painting itself was created by about 20 participants in The Ark’s Project Art class.
“My goal was to bring out the work they do outside of the workplace,” Yomantas says. “It’s all about elevating the participants’ work and generating conversation about the work of The Arc.”
The mural features a sunflower, globally recognised as a symbol of invisible disability, a butterfly – a symbol of transformation, resilience and diversity – and two figures in wheelchairs, which together represent inclusion and the celebration of achievement, Yomantas explained.
The mural, created with funding from the Northern Illinois Community Foundation and the Rockford Area Arts Council, is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
Disability Pride Month, celebrated every July, commemorates the anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The ADA is a landmark civil bill that became law on July 26, 1990. The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability and ensures that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.
Chris Green is a reporter at large for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at 815-987-1241, by email at [email protected] or X. Christopher Green.