Artist Marianna Cruz (above) paints a swallowtail butterfly in a mural she created for Street Roots vendors entering the School in the Sky. Credit: Photo by Kaia Sand
When Street Roots vendors rode the elevator to the third floor of the new Street Roots Burnside Building over the past month, they emerged to see artist Marianna Cruz painting and collaging a bright and flowing mural to depict, as she explained, one’s journey through life.
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. This column represents her views.
The mural flows around a corridor where both the stairs and elevator culminate on what was once simply a rooftop. Now, the corridor leads to the School in the Sky, a classroom built for people on the streets to join others in conversation and learning. Beyond that classroom are solar panels powering much of the building. Atop the classroom is an internet hub that AfroVillage PDX installed to provide free service to the community.
During the past month, the classroom was used by Street Roots vendors editing the holiday zine of creative writing and art, which vendors will sell next month. The feedback from these vendors cheered Cruz along.
Designer Cole Reed mentored Cruz on the project and encouraged her to create a story through images. Two of the images — the flowers and the butterflies — were featured to honor two people who made a big impact on Street Roots, Sandi Pollard and Jennifer Bradford.
Cruz painted big flowers — the shapes of marigolds, dahlias, zinnias and other bright flowers — in honor of Sandi Pollard, the mother of one of Street Roots’ founders, Bryan Pollard. Sandi Pollard provided food, the organization’s first computers, and encouragement to her son and his co-founders 25 years ago. A friend of hers — who wishes to stay anonymous — provided key funding so Street Roots could retrofit the century-old building with an elevator. She asked that Sandi Pollard, who died in 2009, be honored with paintings of bright flowers because she loved to garden.
The big swallowtail butterfly that’s the first thing a person sees when the elevator doors open? That’s for Jennifer Bradford. A Street Roots vendor and then administrative assistant who died Oct. 4, 2023, Bradford was deeply involved in the Burnside Building project. Before Street Roots renovated the Burnside Building, Bradford helped coordinate classes for vendors and lead tours, and — because she navigated by wheelchair — she spoke often of her excitement about reaching the rooftop in our future elevator. Months before she died, a swallowtail butterfly had clutched to her shirt like a corsage, traveling around the city with her.
Cruz’s commitment to dance shows up in how the mural flows. A longtime dancer with Vancouver Ballet Folklórico, Cruz is deeply studied in many Mexican dances, particularly that of her mother’s state of Jalisco. This Saturday, Oct. 19 (2-8 p.m., at Esther Short Park in Vancouver), Cruz will dance with Vancouver Ballet Folklórico in a Dia de Muertos performance alongside her mother, Anna Cruz, the founder and artistic director.
When Cruz describes the mural, she moves along it, her arms outstretched and waving through its movement, left to right.
At the beginning of its journey through the Burnside Building, the butterfly is small. Strips of collaged maps create ribbons of the butterfly’s journey. Other map collages show up elsewhere in the building, foregrounding that Street Roots is a member of an international network of street papers, and thus vendors have peers around the world. Cruz emphasized that idea of having peers by adding more butterflies flying along, too.
The maps also depict places that collage our lives, Cruz explained, and she added bits of her own life: the town of Cali, Colombia where her father grew up; Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico, her mom’s home; and the street in Vancouver, Washington where Cruz was raised.
As she painted and built the butterfly’s journey, she had it fly under rain, then above clouds (“once we overcome our challenges, we rise above them”) until it spread its wings grandly. From there, she had it fly toward a sun that she painted at the corner of the doorway into the classroom, the School in the Sky.
“I added the sun because the sun shines for all,” Cruz said. “I love that it’s an open space. I love that it’s a really bright place. I love the whiteboards where everyone can write their words and thoughts. And so I also just wanted to make it seem like, with all the movement, it brings people to this room.”
The newly renovated Street Roots Burnside Building is designed not only to address foundational needs — the basement will have showers and laundry — but also, the fact that everyone deserves their dreams when they are fighting for survival.
Cruz sees the School in the Sky in that way: “It’s the perfect place for everyone to come and show their greatness and show their talent, and teach others what they can do.”
Street Roots operations move fully to the Burnside Building this month. Watch for upcoming announcements of our community celebrations, including Cruz’s mural and the School in the Sky. See more of Cruz’s artwork at mariannacruz.com
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