Americans for the Arts Artists Committee member Shepard Fairey was one of 31 artists who recently contributed public art to Dr. Maya Angelou Community High School in South Los Angeles, where two dozen new murals turned the drab building into “an explosion of color and story.”

From The Los Angeles Times article:

The paintings — done by 31 artists as part of a weeklong festival co-produced by the L.A. firm Branded Arts and the Los Angeles Unified School District — were the first major LAUSD mural project since a similar 2016 effort at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Koreatown became a lightning rod for protest after some community members found one of the murals offensive. It sparked a debate over cultural sensitivity versus freedom of expression in the realm of public art. 

As a result the Maya Angelou school project, which includes prominent artists such as the all-female collective ​Ni Santas, the artist known as Rabi of the collective Cyrcle and French artist JR's Inside Out Project, has undergone rigorous planning during the last three years, organizers said. Students brainstormed themes for the artists to work with. The ideas, Branded Arts founder Warren Brand said, “fall within the cultural landscape of the community and the ideas of Maya Angelou.”

Fairey said public artists walk a tricky line. “Every time I go into a new project I’m thinking, ‘What’s meaningful here that also overlaps with what’s meaningful to me?’ so that it’s a win-win,” Fairey said. “But if you go forward working through design by committee every time, you’ll basically end up with crap. Because there’s always gonna be somebody who says, ‘I don’t like this, I don’t like that.’” 

Fairey glanced up at his work, Angelou’s face shining in the sunlight. “You do what’s fair and rational and go into the situation looking at how to be sensitive,” Fairey said. “Then you stand behind what you’ve done.”