Wausau Mural Illustrates Path From Addiction To Recovery

Christy Keele has heard people say that living in the throes of addiction is a lot like living without any color. Once recovery begins, the world begins to look more vibrant.

Keele, president of Rise Up Central Wisconsin — a community art organization based in Wausau — is in charge of the creation of a large mural in Wausau that will show the transition out of drug and alcohol addiction. These addictions have been playing out in Marathon County in the form of increased drug-related crimes and has become one of the county’s main health priorities through 2020.

“Wausau loves art,” Keele said. “It’s a great way to take the taboo topic of addiction and connect it with art.”

Titled, “Now I See in Color,” the mural from left to right shows rough images in black and white — dying flowers, pained faces — and a shadow figure that is linked up to a chain of five others who symbolize the changes people in recovery see as they become more connected to their community. In the background of the mural is Granite Peak, a regional ski destination and icon of the Wausau area.

The mural will be installed this fall on a 40-by-80-foot aluminum canvas on on the south side of the Frontier Communications building in downtown Wausau that will be visible from the 400 Block, a park in the center of a business district where events and festivals are often held.

Rise Up’s stance that the opposite of addiction is connecting with others is supported by the mural’s imagery, Keele said. To live out that belief, members of the public are invited to participate in painting the mural, which will make its way around the community in 5-by-5 foot canvas panels. Community paint days will be established to get members of the public, whether art savvy or not, participating in this paint-by-numbers activity.

Portions of the mural will be at Chalkfest on Saturday, July 13. The canvases will also make their way to various recovery meetings in the community. The final community paint day will be during the Artrageous weekend in September.

“When someone sits in isolation, that can just fester more and more addiction, and so we hope that through Rise Up we can, together as a community, address the issue and help to heal, strengthen and unify all the participants in the community,” she said.

Those participants include people dealing with addiction.

Since 2018, two artists commissioned to work on the project met with participants at Lakeside Recovery in Wausau, an inpatient substance abuse treatment program. The artists and participants met every week to compose poetry, vision boards and other artwork to generate themes for the mural.

“It is a very engaged process with the participants themselves and not necessarily just the artists creating that design,” Keele said.

She said some participants who left Lakeside Recovery are coming back to help with the project.

“It just gives them a sense of self-worth,” she said. “Their story really matters and that’s been really an overwhelming theme that we’ve heard from the participants.”