ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Over the Fourth of July weekend, many communities across America celebrated the nation’s independence, and in Liberal, the holiday was marked with another celebration.
The City of Liberal, the Liberal Chamber of Commerce and other community members attended a ribbon cutting for local artist Karem Gallo-Flores’s mural project in Light Park as part of a joint effort from the city, the Kansas Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Gallo-Flores said city commissioner Janeth Vazquez along with other city leaders reached out to her about doing something in the form of art for the community. The artist said the project has been in the works for at least three years, and she said Vazquez had the vision of including some of the things that makes Liberal unique in the mural.
Gallo-Flores likewise credited Liberal Chief Communications Officer Keely Moree for much of the work of getting the project off the ground.
“She put out surveys,” she said. “She put out work for this mural and presented it to the community for them to decide what it is they wanted in the letters. I was hired to work on the art, and with the help of my aunt, it was a mural done by immigrants. We are the only ones who painted on it.”
The mural itself is on polypad, which Gallo-Flores said is perfect for this type of project.
“You prime it, and then you can sketch on it and paint it,” she said. “It adheres to the wall. You can paint over it again.”
Gallo-Flores said workers with the Liberal Parks Department helped put up the monument that was eventually painted with the mural. She explained the process of creating the mural.
“We had to make sections,” she said. “We had to do four sections of 5 by 10, and at the time we were putting this together, we had to move the sunflowers and the Indian blanket flowers design so we could put it on the wall. It’s literally pieced in sections.”
Gallo-Flores worked with her aunt, Rosa Gallo, on the mural, and the two put in much time to get the project done in time for the Fourth of July celebration in Light Park.
“We went over all the scenes,” Gallo-Flores said. “We finished details. We were late onsite after 12 a.m. every night. I think it was three days we were out there. One day, it was from 2 until 12:30. The last night, we were there until 1:30. My husband was there helping us too just keeping an eye.”
Along with being a family project, Gallo-Flores said the mural became a community project, and she said the work presented at the ribbon cutting came with some pain.
“It was stressful,” she said. “We had to be looking up. Her back and neck hurt still.”
For Gallo-Flores, the most stressful part of the mural came with painting a cow and the mural’s borders, and for Gallo, it was the painting of a well.
Gallo-Flores said measuring the letters of the word ‘LIBERAL’ also created much stress.
“People see the design, and they see it done, but they don’t know there’s measurements to all of this, making sure we’re fitting where we need to fit or putting the tape where it needs to be or touching up where it needs to be touched up,” she said. “It was a lot of dedication and love that went into this project.”
So how were the artists feeling as the ribbon was finally cut that Friday morning?
“It was like I could breathe again,” Gallo-Flores said.
Gallo-Flores said Gallo advised her to release her emotions following the ribbon cutting.
“She told me ‘After all of this, you go home, and you just cry it out,’” she said. “It was really nice. It was a very nice ceremony.”
For both Gallo-Flores and Gallo, the mural came about through an effort of the entire Liberal community, and Gallo-Flores said as work continued on the project, community members showed much support for that work.
“A lot of community members would drive by, and they would honk,” she said. “They would tell us how beautiful it was. We even had a gentleman bring us donuts. A lot of people were taking pictures while we were doing it.”
The support continued with phone calls to both Gallo-Flores and Gallo, as people saw the two toiling for hours in Light Park.
“That was really nice,” Gallo-Flores said. “It was great seeing, how community members were so excited for this, how hard the city worked on giving this to the community, how hard Keeley worked, how hard the city manager worked, everybody at the Parks Department, how they helped me put it up, my aunt, my family. It became a family project, and I think what makes Liberal is that we’re all family.”
With not only her aunt helping her, but many throughout Liberal pitching in as well, Gallo-Flores said the mural is truly a community project.
“It’s for the community, and I’m glad the community’s enjoying it,” she said.
Both Gallo-Flores and Gallo were tired, but Gallo-Flores said her aunt wanted to see the product finished, making all of the work worth it.
“She knows it’s a big project for me,” she said. “She wanted to help me. She did help me a lot. She went on vacation, and she came back. She felt she needed to help me. She wanted to help me.”
As the project continued, the artists were taking care of some of life’s other necessities, including taking care of Gallo-Flores’s mother in an Amarillo, Texas, hospital, but for her, even in a different location, the work continued.
“I was there drawing all my sketches,” she said. “I was out of Liberal so often working on this.”
Gallo-Flores said it is great to have played a part in something that will be part of Liberal’s landscape for years to come.
“It feels good to be done with it,” she said. “It feels good to drive down the road and see it. It feels good to know it’s always going to be seen as long as it stands up. It feels really nice. “It makes my heart happy, and it’s very colorful. Those colors are very vibrant. We’ve been in this area for so long, and we want to give back to the community.”
“It feels beautiful,” Gallo said. “I would’ve never stopped.”
“I never thought I would ever do something like this,” Gallo-Flores said. “She said ‘I always knew you were going to do like this’ She’s always had that feeling. It was amazing”
Though the work may have seemed strenuous, Gallo-Flores said she did not mind it at all.
“It didn’t feel like it was a lot when I was doing it because I was enjoying every moment of it,” she said. “It was with everything outside of it happening that was making the pressure. Literally, I could be working on it, and I would have take an ER trip with my mother. It was things like that which slowed the process a little.”
Gallo said the time and effort put into the mural was absolutely worth it.
“It was worth the backaches,” she said. “It was worth the hunching over on the table or working on the floor. It was worth spending all this time together. It was worth being tired.”
Gallo-Flores said she likewise enjoyed getting to spend time with her aunt.
“It was really nice to work together, to see something come together with all the hard work,” she said. “It’s a nice feeling, and it’s nice to give the community something they deserve. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.”
