Where are you on the wall? has become Where are you in the book?
A controversial anti-drug mural that was created by local art students and teens in recovery from addiction — but then painted over last summer by a downtown business that didn’t like its strong language and disturbing imagery — is getting the public’s attention in a different way.
Once as big as the side of a building, the mural image now slips easily between the pages of your favorite summer read.
It’s now a bookmark. And local businesses, from libraries and bookstores to grocers and law firms, are stocking it on their front counters and giving it away for free.
“Our board is pretty passionate about it. They didn’t want to see the mural die,” said Donna Wiench, the development director for Daybreak Youth Services, a residential addiction treatment program. Daybreak masterminded the artwork, recruited Vancouver schools art teacher Heather Fukuchi to realize it, and deployed many of its own young clients in recovery to do the work.
What they created was a wall-sized depiction of the journey from drug addiction to freedom, with words like “dope,” “crime,” “hate,” “pain” and “murder” on the darker side. Of course, that left side was balanced by the rainbow colors, smiling faces and happy messages like “love,” “family” and “caring friendship” on the right. But last summer’s incoming building tenant, Riverside Performing Arts, still didn’t want the arresting mural on its place of business at 1108 Main St., where little children would be flocking for music and dance lessons.
So — even after Wiench and Fukuchi scrubbed it clean of the strongest words — the mural disappeared under a new coat of battleship gray.
Now it’s reappearing, thanks to donations by several local attorneys who deal in family law and are too familiar with families ravaged by addictions.
“We do divorce work and custody work and it’s not unusual that families in crisis … have issues like drug and alcohol problems,” said attorney Dru Horenstein of the Scott Horenstein Law Firm — and a member of Daybreak Youth Services board of directors.
A bookmark is a handy way to spread the word about the availability of addiction treatment, Horenstein said.
“It’s not commonly known how to access a good treatment facility,” she said, “and when people are in crisis, they may not have the presence of mind to think it through. A bookmark is an easy way to get the information out to our clients.”
It’s extra important to get out the word about Daybreak, she said, because the private nonprofit agency is looking for support as it grows. Daybreak’s Vancouver residential facility, in the Bagley Downs neighborhood, takes teenage boys only. It owns two acres of land on Northeast 112th Avenue for a future facility for girls, too, but that’s a long-term goal; meanwhile, girls seeking treatment need to go to a sister Daybreak facility in Spokane.
“We feel very strongly that we need to be helping all our kids, boys and girls, when they get in trouble,” Horenstein said.
Wiench said the loss of the mural “kind of knocked the wind out of our sails for a while.” But eventually the Daybreak board decided to pull the mural and its message back into the light — if not on the side of a building, then on the sides of thousands of pieces of paper that can spread all over town.
One side of the bookmark features a photo of the artwork — minus the negative words that Wiench and Fukuchi removed. The other side provides Daybreak’s contact information and asks, Where are you in the mural? Do you know someone who is struggling with addiction, or are you?
“You cannot address this issue by hiding it,” said Wiench. “This is a way to get people talking about it and thinking about it.”
Look for the bookmarks at several Vancouver locations including:
• All 13 local Fort Vancouver Regional Library branches.
• Halo Designs, 1923 Main St.
• Vintage Books, 6613 E. Mill Plain Blvd.
• Pabst Holland & Reynolds law firm, 900 Washington Street, No. 820.
• Scott Horenstein law firm, 900 Washington St., No. 1020.
• Miller Nash law firm, 500 E. Broadway, No. 400.
Scott Hewitt: 360-735-4525 or scott.hewitt@columbian.com.
