Cries of “Recall Paul!” and “Put it back!” rang out in the State House Monday as about 300 people rallied to protest Gov. Paul LePage’s removal of a mural depicting Maine workers’ history from the Dept. of Labor building late last month.
LePage was responding to an anonymous fax and complaints by two unnamed businessmen that the illustrations were one-sided. Protesters say the governor’s act was a “partisan political decision.”
Among those speaking at the April 4 rally in the Hall of Flags were plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the governor not only for First Amendment infringements but also breach of contract between the department and mural artist Judy Taylor.
Prominent among them was Natasha Mayers, of Whitefield, introduced by Union of Maine Visual Artists president and plaintiff Robert Shetterly.
Also an artist, Shetterly, who promised the crowd that the mural would be put back, described Mayers as “probably Maine’s greatest political artist, a great treasure of the state of Maine.”
Mayers, a mural artist and teacher, condemned LePage’s act for dealing “a staggering blow” to the state’s economy. She suggested amending the governor’s recently installed “Maine – Open for Business” turnpike sign to read: “Visit the painting that deposed an emperor.”
The reference to LePage’s autocratic style and the authoritarian nature of the mural removal was echoed by other speakers.
Those addressing the sometimes raucous, consistently energized crowd ranged from a Methodist minister and former legislators, to art critics, labor advocates, a Portland city councilor and Biddeford’s mayor, as well as lawyers representing the plaintiffs.
Maine College of Art President Don Tuski said, “Art serves as a mirror that reflects a moment in time.” The governor didn’t like “the piece of history” reflected in panels that highlighted papermaker strikes and woods workers as well as Bath Ironworks wartime woman welders, so he “smashed that mirror – an attempt to rewrite history,” Tuski said. The mural was commissioned as public art “for all the people of Maine,” he added.
The theme that Taylor’s mural attempted to convey and that rally speakers emphasized was the role that workers, in their struggles against exploitation, have played in creating the state’s wealth and prosperity.
Attorney Jeffrey Neil Young, who is representing the plaintiffs in U.S. District Court in Portland, said the suit is “for the artist, the working man and woman, and the business man and woman; it’s for the memory of Frances Perkins,” U.S. Labor Secretary under Pres. Franklin Roosevelt; “it’s not just for Republicans, Democrats, or Greens… It’s for violation of the First Amendment, the right to free speech and its free expression, and to stop the government for censoring what it doesn’t want us to hear, see or know. I like to think I’m an equal opportunity employer who’ll sue you if you violate our civil rights.”
Poet Lee Sharkey, of Vienna, criticized LePage’s action as reflective of his administration’s legislative agenda, “which would reverse the hard-won gains of [workers in] the last century. Perhaps this is why the governor removed the mural – if he looked he might see in it the ruinous working conditions his policies would help revive.”
One suggestion was that those who feel unrepresented by the mural might commission their own.
Linda Campbell Marshall, a retired minister, said the artists attending the rally would then be given a job by “[helping] the unrepresented tell their side.”
Contacted after the rally, Mayers said the governor’s intention, announced March 23, to remove the mural motivated her to get in touch with Shetterly, other UMVA members, and some art historians and critics “to plan something as soon as possible, maybe a sit-in.”
From that point, a well-orchestrated response evolved. A press conference was held at the Dept. of Labor two days later, which happened to be the anniversary of the New York City Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 garment workers and initiated the American labor movement.
The well-attended gathering in the labor building was co-sponsored by the AFL-CIO.
Then, over the March 26-27 weekend, the 11-panel, 36-ft.-long mural “disappeared. We all know it’s in an electrical closet in the building,” said Mayers.
The lawsuit states it was removed at LePage’s bidding by employees of the building owner, who leases to the Dept. of Labor.
Asked by a reporter what his response would be if there were further protests, LePage replied he would “laugh and call them idiots,” remarks that prompted rally speakers this week to castigate the governor for behavior that divides rather than unites Maine people.
Art critic Edgar Allan Beem said that in 46 years of writing about Maine culture, “I’ve never seen such acrimony, such poor respect on the part of a public official.”
Countering LePage’s official spokesperson who labeled the mural issue “minor,” Beem said, “Well, it’s not minor anymore. We are the laughingstock” in newspapers, on editorial pages, on television and radio programs across the country.
Quoting the “idiot” comment, Beem said, “That’s what people across the U.S. are saying about Paul LePage now.”
The contract with the Maine Dept. of Labor states that the agency has “to notify and consult” with the artist before the mural can be relocated.
Further research by writers and artists into how the mural was funded revealed about two-thirds of the $60,000 came from a federal grant, Mayers said. This finding inspired them to contact U.S. Representatives Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud about where the money came from.
On Monday, the U.S. Dept. of Labor notified its Maine counterpart that it could either reimburse the cost or display the mural in its headquarters or another state employment security building. The money came from Maine’s account in the federal Unemployment Trust Fund.
On March 25, Jonathan Beal of Portland, in a letter to Maine State Museum Director Joseph Phillips and copied to LePage, urged that a public hearing be held and that any action that might be taken “be based upon the mural’s subject matter and historical nature, without being influenced by political considerations.”
Beal, who received no answer, subsequently joined the suit, which asks that the mural be returned to its original location.
The other three plaintiffs are Don Berry, president of the Maine AFL-CIO; John Newton, an industrial hygienist with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Dept. of Labor; and Joan Braun, a therapist and artist.
Troubling to Mayers is that state workers, whether in the Dept. of Labor or elsewhere in state government, are “afraid” to talk about such issues as the mural controversy; or that the Maine Arts Commission, the agency that administers the program enabling the mural project and whose mission, in part, is to assist in the freedom of artistic expression, didn’t make “a peep.”
This climate of intimidation bothers Mayers equally with the mural removal.
“There are so many issues,” she said. The “Bring Our War Dollars Home” rally by Maine peace activists that was held an hour before the mural rally targeted many such issues, notably the need to fund education and healthcare and to end the economic crisis.
For Mayers, securing economic justice and encouraging art that makes people “think and vote about the kind of state we want to live in” are two compelling objectives.
