Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.
Michael Pilado and Chimene Pinder-Hurst were interviewed in the History Center in the One Year Later exhibit space about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre community response.
Michael believes that art should be about community and healing. He works with painter Yuriy Karabasch. When Pulse happened Mikael was working on a Mural in Williamsport Pennsylvania that had over 700 inspirational people depicted. That day he painted the Florida state bird which is the Mocking Jay. The Jay holds a stick with 5 strings with 49 orange blossoms. Members of the LGBT community came out to paint the orange blossoms.
Deborah Bidel the head of the post traumatic stress disorder program of UCF called and asked him to paint Juan Ramon Guerrero and Christopher “Drew” Leinonen together and put their names in it.
He then got a call from Chimene Hurst and she asked him if he could come to Orlando to do some of his healing projects. As she was calling, a hawk flew overhead and he saw it a a sign to come to Orlando. Yuriy and Michael for the last eight years have been traveling the world creating a series of murals which will connect on the internet becoming the world mural. Each mural’s title is Inspiration with the name of the place. Here he worked on Inspiration Orlando. When he got to Orlando he and Chimene went looking for wall, talking to many business owners. They found about 30 possible walls for murals. They wanted to find 49 locations. They spoke with the LGBT community, the Latino community and with the city. In Orlando he developed the recipe for how to do the world mural.
Chimene and Michael were at the Dr. Phillips Center where thousands of objects were left on the front lawn for the 49 who had died. Chimene asked the 49 angels if they could guide them to where they should go next to make the project a reality. Immediately when she turned around she saw a friend. She asked her if she had any walls for a mural and Chuan said yes. They went up to a property on Mills and 50 to look at a possible mural site. Michael noticed an upstairs deserted space and asked about it. It had been abandoned for years but it would eventually become the art studio where mural panels were created. As they were looking at the property a hawk flew overhead. That hawk moved into a tree next to Avalon just as Michael moved into the art studio. Synchronicity and trust are what founded the project.
Juan and Drew were panted in front of Mathew Sheppard, Drews mom entered the studio and asked why he had chosen to paint Drew in front of Mathew. He explained it was because of the composition. She told him a story, When Drew was younger he and his mom met Mathews mother. Drew was so impressed with ho open Mathews mom was about her son being gay that he decided it was time for him to come out to his mom.
Patience Carter was placed next to authors like Billy Manes. Patience Carter read a beautiful poem from her hospital bed about survivors guilt. A heart with Jason Josaphat was right above her. Jason is the one who jumped in front of her, not even knowing her and took the bullets that took his life, saving her.
Months had gone by where they struggled to find a place for the mural but in that time Michaael had not picked up a brush. They were so lost in the planning that the creation had been pushed aside. Chimene told Michael, ‘Just start painting.’ He brought marine grade panels and started to piece together the mural in the studio. Rather than finding the wall and fitting the mural to the wall they started creating without concern about the final destination. Funding the project was a struggle, from cockroaches. leaky ceilings to termites to rats. Michael and Chimene funded what they could. The struggle has been a joy as well.
The mural is 36 feet by 12 feet. At the time of the interview Michael said there was one more month of work to be done on it. The plan for the big mural if the wall is available is that it would be 130 feet by 40 feet. Another connecting wall would be 100 feet by 24 feet. The large mural would have augmented reality elements that could be seen with cell phones. The first mural was done as a sketch so some figure sizes and proportions aren’t perfect. The final mural would be more refined. The possibilities are endless.