SWANTON — Public art walls caught in the middle of community conflict over racial injustice were removed overnight following a unanimous decision Monday night by the Swanton Village Board of Trustees.
The walls have been a source of conflict for the Swanton community for the past two months as dueling citizen artists have fought over the art walls. One group has painted messages of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement; other residents have painted over those messages.
This past weekend, an encounter between Swanton residents — those that helped paint a “unity” mural and a man who painted over their mural just hours after they finished — propelled the issue further.
Village Manager Reggie Beliveau said people from the community came into the trustees’ meeting Monday night “heartbroken” over the “negativity” seen on Facebook about the art walls.
“The concern from the community was it’s time [for the walls] to come down and quit using the art boards as a message board and to sit down across the table and start talking about the real issues that are perceived in communities as far as, you know equality and any racial issues that may be out there,” he said.
Multiple Swanton Village community members spoke at the meeting. All decried the recent use of the art walls as “message boards” for political purposes.
One woman described the art, which included a black fist and an image of white and black hands holding each other, as “hate speech.”
Another resident, Nicole Gadouas, vice president of the Swanton Art Council, told trustees she is “disgusted” by the actions of some in her community.
“I, as a person in the community, agree with all of you. I was ashamed to see the character slamming on Facebook, I think it was horrible,” she said. “If they’re trying to prove a point of peace, and kindness, that’s not happening. It’s separation and divide and judgment, and I’m really disgusted by all of it.”
Village Trustee Adam Paxman made a motion to have the art boards removed until January, at which time the village trustees and the arts council could come together and discuss more rules.
“We decided last night that it’s gotten to a point where we’re afraid someone’s going to get hurt over this,” he said in an interview. “And I’m not going to allow that to happen on my watch.”
Paxman said the paintings started off as an interesting way for community members to display artistic skills. When one resident painted a black fist on one of the boards, they became a vehicle for political messages, he said.
“Someone wanted to bring to the attention of everybody you know the social injustice going on around the country. And that’s what started with the black fist,” he said. “And after that, it became a message board, it no longer became an art wall, it became a message board.”
Paxman said the trustees do not condone racism of any kind. The decision to remove the boards was made Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, most were gone.
The five two-sided boards, scattered through town, have been in place since 2015.
Beliveau said he’s not concerned about Swanton residents having an opportunity to speak out since the discussion is also playing out on social media.
“From what I’ve been seeing on social media, it doesn’t seem like they’re concerned about speaking out,” he said. “So I don’t think to remove the art boards is going to curtail any of their ability to have their voices heard.”
Swanton resident Hilarie Santiago, a person of color, told VTDigger in an interview that she and others often feel intimidated in the predominantly white community of Swanton.
“These [people of color] are people who exist in your community, representation matters, and it makes us feel welcome when people paint solidarity symbols, makes us feel seen,” she said. “And when people cover it up, it makes us feel afraid to be in our community, makes us afraid to go walk into the grocery store because we don’t know who is around us.”
Beliveau said he had never heard any complaints about racism in Swanton, particularly from Santiago.
“We need to come down and speak to one another and quit using the media as our venue and quit making it self serving. Let’s talk as a community,” he said. “I’m sorry but, you know, the media tends to show up when things aren’t going well. But 99.9% of what happens here in Swanton is good stuff and we don’t see you guys then.”
In early June, police looked into white supremacy related graffiti and paintings on the boards, according to the St.Albans Messenger.
Santiago is also one of the artists who has been using the walls, along with Chloe Viner Collins.
Viner Collins feels she has been “vilified” by the community because she called out fellow Swanton resident David Hemingway’s white out of a unity mural.
“I’ve been blamed by a lot of people who I’ve spent five years building relationships within this town, who said I’m doing it [confronting Hemingway] the wrong way,” she said. “But this has never happened right. It’s unprecedented. No artists have had to, like, have their art defaced within an hour every time they try to do it, in the history of the art board.”
Viner Collins said she’s upset and has been losing sleep.
“It’s hard for me,” she said. “I love my community and I love the people in my community. It’s really hard to know that, like, people view me as a problem because the problem is racism.”
Viner Collins said she’s forming a racial equity committee that Police Chief Leonard “Joey” Stell said he’d be happy to be a part of.
“I told them I would love to be part of that discussion and to help move things forward in a very equitable way and get that dialogue going,” Stell said. “Until we have open dialogue and work with people to figure out what their intrinsic biases are we can’t move forward as is a culture or is a community.”
Since the art walls have been removed, some community members have reached out to Santiago and Viner Collins about creating murals on private property.
Trustee Paxman thanked the resident who brought the art board issue to everyone’s attention.
“I mean, the good thing that’s come out of this is, this person who started it has started the conversation,” Paxman said. “We simply need to move it from the art walls to the table and have face-to-face conversations with people on how to deal with diversity and inequality.”
