Spokane downtown Pride mural isn’t going anywhere, community vows

As Patterson led four painters in restoring the mural last week, gay-associated pop hits like Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor blasted from speakers placed around the intersection. Just off the mural, Matthew Danielson and Skyler Oberst, the executive directors of Spokane Pride and Spokane Arts, respectively, set up tents with refreshments and information about their organizations and fielded the frequent questions from the public and the media as folks walked by the art-in-progress. 

For 24 hours the intersection in front of Riverfront Park transformed into something akin to a block party as the Pride flag mural was restored to its original glory. The mural, which has been a frequent target of vandalism — as recently as last week — and even arson, was designed by queer Spokane artist Tiffany Patterson as part of the Asphalt Arts program run by Spokane Arts and funded by the city of Spokane.

As Patterson led four painters in restoring the mural last week, gay-associated pop hits like Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor blasted from speakers placed around the intersection. Just off the mural, Matthew Danielson and Skyler Oberst, the executive directors of Spokane Pride and Spokane Arts, respectively, set up tents with refreshments and information about their organizations and fielded the frequent questions from the public and the media as folks walked by the art-in-progress. 

Volunteers flitted in and out of the roped off intersection, rolling paint, bringing snacks or standing by with angel costumes to block from sight any anti-queer protesters, though few showed up.

The volunteers were mostly friends and family, Danielson said, and the artists who had agreed to donate their time on the first evening to lay down the coat of primer necessary for the paint to stick. Some government officials joined the paint party as well: Mayor Lisa Brown; Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane; State Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane; County Commissioner Chris Jordan and City Council Member Paul Dillon all stopped by to show their support, Oberst said.

“It feels really good to have the community come,” Patterson said. “The massive amount of outpouring of support that happened immediately following [the vandalism] was very rewarding and it showed how important it was.”

This is Patterson’s third time leading the repaint efforts, and according to them, “It gets easier every time because we’re learning so much.” Patterson is an experienced public artist with prior mural experience — including the Peaceful Valley basketball court paint job — under their belt, but the project has also created learning opportunities for artists to work under them as paid assistants.

City funds covered the original cost of the project, but the repaint efforts were completely funded by a wave of donations that came after the vandalism. “We raised it in three days. I could not believe that,” Danielson said. “I kept texting [Oberst] to be like ‘Oh my God we have this much!’ It was great.”

Oberst celebrated too, but was more pragmatic. “Given where the city is at financially, it’s nice to provide this to the community without being a burden to the taxpayers,” he said. “Because we live in a city that is deserving of great art, we want to make sure that all vandalism is cleaned up quickly so we can all enjoy it.”

Additional surveillance was also installed around the intersection, including a high-resolution mobile camera system owned by the Downtown Spokane Partnership, which was moved to the intersection for Pride Month to deter further vandalism.

‘Not going anywhere’

Just a few hours after Patterson and their team finished painting and less than three hours before a new state law was passed making “bias-motivated” vandalism of public property a felony hate crime, four teenagers riding Lime scooters were observed by witnesses and cameras doing burnouts over the fresh paint. The suspects were observed yelling obscenities at witnesses as they vandalized the mural. According to a press release from the Spokane Police Department (SPD), the area is clearly marked to keep traffic away as it was just repainted to repair previous damage.

SPD arrested 19-year-old Ruslan Turko and two minors on the charge of first-degree Malicious Mischief. They were caught 34 minutes after the initial 911 call was placed just before 9 p.m. on June 5. 

The scooter wheels left black scuff marks across the entire mural. Speaking to RANGE as he observed the new damage to the mural for the first time, Oberst said tire marks from Lime scooters are especially hard to clean.

“The wheels are actually made of a particular compound that is really, really terrible when they burn out on public art,” he said. “If you scrub it, it would take forever.”

Because of the nature of the damage and the cost of closing streets safely for repainting, Oberst and Danielson jointly decided to leave the damage intact, at least through Pride weekend, which was last weekend. “I wish I had a better answer for you, because I would love to have it right like yesterday,” Oberst said. “But it’s not going to be the case.”

Oberst said he and Danielson plan to propose a community service program for the young vandals to scrub graffiti on public art and public buildings as a “learning opportunity.”

“It sends a powerful message of who we are as a community. This is not punitive,” Oberst said. “Restorative justice is who we are. We would welcome an extra set of hands for graffiti abatement downtown.”

On Thursday, as he watched the final steps of the mural repainting, Danielson told RANGE that despite the repeated vandalism, he was proud of the community’s support for the project as a whole. “It's clearly like a very small percentage of people that are not OK with Pride stuff,” he said. “The entire community spoke in raising all this money in three days.”

As the painters worked, a few drivers and pedestrians had shouted obscenities at them from car windows or the sidewalk throughout the day, according to the painters.

But, Patterson said, “for all of the terrible people saying horrible things, there’s ten times more positive people. And the people that stop and thank us is so surprising. It’s people you wouldn’t expect. And people will drive by and roll down their window and scream ‘Thank you!’ … The community shows up and it’s very apparent that the people that are for it are greater [than those against it].”

Patterson had no way of knowing what would happen later that evening, but as they put some of the last touches on their work, they shrugged with a smile on their face. “If it happens again, we’ll paint it again,” they said. “We’re here. We’re not going anywhere.”