Photo by Quinn Clark
The candles next to Gloria Ruiz-Santos’s mural were placed on Día de los Muertos on Nov. 1. They were lit to remember victims of police brutality.
South Milwaukee resident Gloria Ruiz-Santos remembers drawing for as long she can remember. Through her experience as a self-taught artist, she’s found that she always tries to give her artwork a deeper meaning. “I always have to have a muse,” Ruiz-Santos says. “I can’t really do something just for the sake of it, because it seems too generic and cold.”
So, when Elizabeth Torres, the owner of Love’s on Tap (201 W. Mitchell St.), asked her to paint a mural outside of the bar, Ruiz-Santos knew she wanted it to have a deeper purpose. She decided that her mural would be in honor of Joel Acevedo, Jay Anderson Jr., Alvin Cole and Antonio Gonzalez, men who died at the hands of police officers in Wisconsin.
The mural was entirely funded by the community. Ruiz-Santos sold donated plants and plants from her own garden so that she could afford all that she needed to begin the piece.
Ruiz-Santos has helped other artists with their murals before, but this is the first one that she’s organized on her own. “I never thought that I would come up with something like this,” she says. “That’s why I put on the bottom of the mural, ‘In honor of the three and Alvin Cole,’ because without this movement and what they and their loved ones had to go through, I would not have designed this mural myself.”
Ruiz-Santos’s personality shines through the art. She used her love of plants and nature to symbolize the four men she wanted to honor. “I've always been drawn to flowers and nature itself, and the owners of Love’s, they’re very big on plants themselves,” she explains.
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Different Backgrounds
While her mural does not feature portraits of the victims, each plant and bird symbolizes their backgrounds. She researched where their families were from to incorporate different aspects of Puerto Rico, Cuba and Africa. “I just wanted mainly to create something visual. Something to give people a little bit of hope,” she continues. “Due to everything going on, this is something nice people can look to and feel a little bit hopeful.”
Photo by Quinn Clark
Gloria Ruiz-Santos paints the mural in honor of Joel Acevedo, Jay Anderson Jr., Alvin Cole and Antonio Gonzalez outside of Love’s On Tap. Photo provided by Ruiz-Santos.
Ruiz-Santos says she worked on the mural for a total of eight days. During those days, people from the surrounding community came up to her to express their support. One instance that stands out to her is when an elderly woman came up to her while she was working. “She didn't speak a word of English, but she was just coming over to send good vibes,” Ruiz-Santos says. “She had this little card and it just had some beautiful words in there, like words of inspiration. And she just came and tapped me and pointed at the card for me to read it.”
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, was on Nov. 1. Ruiz-Santos explained that, since this day is meant to remember loved ones who have passed away, she wanted to place candles by the mural. Despite harsh wind and cold weather, she lined up candles and lit them to honor Joel Acevedo, Jay Anderson Jr., Alvin Cole and Antonio Gonzalez. “That was kind of my goal to have it done by Día de los Muertos and to have a little moment for them,” she says.
The owners of Love’s liked Ruiz-Santos finished mural so much that they’ve asked her to paint another one inside the bar’s lounge area. “It's going to be a different feel, a little bit more elegant, a little bit more of a darker tone in there,” she explains.
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