Mural on downtown Turlock building lasted just 12 hours. What happened and what’s next
A Turlock organization covered up its mural on a downtown business over the weekend after some residents called the painting political.
Complaints about the artwork featuring the message “This is not a wall” and posing silhouettes prompted Turlock officials to check whether it violated municipal codes, but City Attorney Doug White said Harder’s Print Shop planned its removal before he could make a determination.
Shop owner Donna Pierce said she asked Made in Turlock, an organization supporting the arts and community, to cover the mural completed on Friday because she did not want to hurt people’s feelings. The group led by Councilman Andrew Nosrati had her permission to paint the mural, Pierce said, and they agreed to not create anything political. While Pierce said she saw Nosrati’s vision of a mural that invited people to think creatively, similar to the surrealist French painting of a pipe titled The Treachery of Images, others interpreted the artwork differently.
Michael Camara, president of the Downtown Property Owners Association, said some members of the community were concerned the words could evoke the controversy of President Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Though not speaking in his capacity as president of the downtown agency, Camara said some residents looked at the mural from afar and pointed out that the silhouettes appeared to be raising a closed fist in a way associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, Black power and showing solidarity.
Other figures painted on the mural were dancing, displaying a peace sign and forming a heart with their hands. The artist Joel Aguilar asked people downtown to express themselves in an impromptu manner, Nosrati said, and modeled the silhouettes after them.
Because of the shop’s visibility along Broadway, Camara said Made in Turlock could have consulted the association and neighboring businesses about the mural’s content beforehand. A discussion about murals is scheduled in the association’s next meeting agenda, Camara confirmed.
“Whether that wall is intended to imply something, it’s really the perception of the viewer that matters,” Camara said.
A month before creating the display, Nosrati said he consulted city staff about creating a mural on private property and they did not reference any restrictions. Turlock law classifies murals as signs under municipal code 9-2-509, but White said he stopped looking to determine whether the mural qualified as unsafe and unlawful per code 9-2-522 because the business decided to have it removed.
If he determined it violated city codes, White said the city might have sent the print shop a written notice. The business could have then made arrangements to cover it or the city could have painted over it and charged labor fees. Moving forward, White said Turlock’s budget limitations may prevent him from revisiting and updating the sign codes.
“The challenge is Turlock is so financially strapped that even when we’ve identified issues in the past like the sign ordinance, there just hasn’t been the money to put towards bringing it up to snuff,” White said.
Although the mural only lasted 12 hours, Nosrati said Made in Turlock did plan it as a temporary art installation to draw attention to the organization’s launch. The group, which filed for nonprofit status in July, is also planning an agricultural-themed mural for Harder’s Print Shop.
“I’m very hopeful that the next one will be more unifying in nature and that we can start focusing on what the intention of words are than looking for ways to polarize them,” Nosrati said.
Nosrati added that the organization aims to raise funds for the Assyrian American Civic Club, which has suffered economically during the pandemic. The club’s financial secretary, Cyrus Amirfar, said the club has not authorized Nosrati to conduct any fundraisers on its behalf, however.
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 7:38 AM.
