Augustana member and artist Robin Mitchell, supported by a grant from the South East Chicago Commission, designed and created a mural for Augustana’s east-facing exterior wall. The mural has two components and Robin recently installed the final pieces. In her own words:
Back in 2021, when I was working on getting the “flower” mural on the wall, I was made aware that if I proceeded with what I had done, it would have fallen off the wall. I had to completely dismantle it and start over. Four friends, Nancy Dishno, Sandy Henley, Judy Merritt-Morgan and JoRachel Pierce sat with me for days, weeks, removing the tiles from the mesh and then mortaring them to a substrate.
On the original, the words “Gather us into community”, were across the top two sections. However, they were made up of tiny pieces and I decided that asking anyone to reassemble them would be cruel. So, I removed the words and replaced them with a rainbow and more glass tiles, but I still wanted those words to be up there.
Within weeks of getting the “Flower” up, I started to work on the next piece. I drew different designs for the base, picked one that reflected the original shape and started to construct the base. Then I began to lay out my vision for this addition. The glass tiles in the first mural represent water, perhaps the only “religious” part of it. I liked the look of it and decided to have that be the base of design, but it needed something more. I went to my inspiration for the “Flower”, the hymn “Gather Us In”. The last phrase of the last verse reads “gather us in, all peoples together, fire of ‘love’ in our flesh and our bone.” I immediately knew what I was going to do. I started cutting “faces” out of the flesh color tiles and spelled the word “love”, having the original words go across the word.
I had some challenges with the original words, but the man who helped me mount the “Flower”, Ahmed Ibrahim, taught me to work around road blocks. I made my own substrate and used stained glass to create those tiles. It was time and money saving and let me use my stained glass skills.
Judy and JoRachel helped me grout the panel and two of the loves of my life, Lizzie and Benjamin, helped me mount it on the wall two weeks ago. Thank you all for your help on this project and thank you to all at Augustana for having faith in my vision. I am very proud of it and happy that the original message was strengthened.
Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park 
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