Homestead by Ian Green

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This is a great mural that captures the soul of the neighborhood. Ian Green presents us with a multi panel work of the people and history of Homestead.

We asked Mr Green to tell us a bit about the mural and the people in it. He had this to say:

I originally wanted to cover the whole wall with one big piece for the Homestead mural, but instead I tried to work the piece into the wall around its elements (pipes, fire escape, spaces between windows, etc). I wanted to tip my hat to the Homestead of Now, (like the painting of the millworker tipping his hat to the painting of the garment worker, Blemah Do) which was vibrant and holding on in its own way in the wake of the financial wreckage of the post–steel industry.

I hadn’t known the Homestead of the past. I wasn’t focused on the heyday, but on where I was in the moment.. So Old Timers, jitney drivers, shopkeepers were the subjects I had, but I did want to explore the significance of the 1892 strike as an indicator of the spirit of the people and their strength. The tiles that rise up out of the stack were done by members of the community. You can see their work on several of the tile panels. I thought of the sacrifices made being hurled up and outward like so much smoke, yet not forgotten but admired and remembered.

The river portrait was my homage to Nature before Mankind, or man–unkind as the case may be (environmentally speaking). The ruins of the post–industrial Homestead form the backdrop behind the muse holding up a vision of the past: a great river, alive and giving, as opposed to this tool for industry that it became. The turtle represents a speed of life we need to rekindle if we are to survive in this insanity.

The old timers in the Homestead mural are depicted almost exactly where the bench used to be that they sat on every day. They always had a kind word to say or at least a smile and a wave. When I moved in there in 1999, there was a constant energy between the jitney stands on Ann St. and Jack’s Variety. Jack’s was the REAL center of Homestead. That’s where you could find out what was really happening.

The tiles were donated by PennDot. I did all that tile work on the Homestead Mural with the much–needed help of a couple of friends and the Homestead Arts Council without which this project would not exist.

This panel depicts a dark time in the history of the area. The events that took place at the Homestead Steel mill in 1892 marked one of the bloodiest, most violent times in American labor history. Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick were determined to bust the union. In the confrontation that ensued the Pinkerton guards brought in by Frick tried to surrender not once, but four times. It required 8,500 state militia men to restore control over Homestead. The community remained under martial law for five long months.

Summary:

Artist(s): Ian Green
Address: Ann St and 8th Ave
City: Homestead
Zip Code: 15120

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