August 2011 Greater Harrisburg's Community Newspaper - theBurg

Around Town
Public Art, Social Good
BARAK Arts: Positive change,1 mural at a time.
T.W. Burger
At first glance, the name may bring
to mind the current resident in the
White House, but BARAK Arts is not
about governing and all about using
the arts to change young lives and
enhance communities.
Wendell C. Murray first had the
idea for the organization about 15
years ago, before most people had
heard of Barack Obama.
It started gaining momentum
when then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama
first made a name for himself. But
there is no connection.
“Barak was a general in the court
of Deborah in the Bible,” Murray
said. “The name translates to mean
‘Thunderbolt.’”
The adventures of General
Barak are found in Judges in the Old
Testament.
The 50-something Murray is
from Philadelphia, but has lived in
Harrisburg for 20 years.
His path to head an arts
organization was not exactly direct. “I
grew up wanting to be a police officer,”
he said. “I was on a long, crazy road to
where I am now.”
Murray worked at the Freedom
Theater in Philadelphia as an actor,
director and stagehand. “It gave me
the theatrical bug.”
He went to New York to study
acting, took up hair-dressing to pay
the bills, watched his thespian dreams
diminish, then became a surgical
nurse.
Eventually, he found himself in
Harrisburg, and his arts idea started to
grow.
BARAK launched in 2000. The
group showed up at the city’s arts
fests the first few years, leaning
heavily on its founder’s theatrical
background.
“We build bridges between
people through the arts, as a way to
bring people together,” Murray said.
“We focus always on the youth, with
artists as mentors.”
BARAK initially put on socially
conscious plays, but eventually the
group decided the productions were
not reaching enough kids.
Murray researched Philadelphia’s
mural arts program and decided to
change the program’s focus because
mural arts reaches a large number
of kids while doing “something very
positive for the community.”
“We have a roster of about 15
artists who work with us, and a lot of
volunteers,” he said.
During summer, about 100 kids
take part in the program, run out of
BARAK’s 13th Street location it shares
with Mikayla’s Place. For the rest of
the year, BARAK works at the schools
with about 150 students. They have
“muralized” spaces at Reservoir Park
and at several city schools.
Murray also is at work on his own
mural, a tribute to men and women
who have served their country. “I’m
researching a place to put it,” he said.
This year’s theme for projects is
“The People Next to You”—it’s about
diversity and inclusion. “The idea is
to open your eyes and really see the
people who are next to you,” Murray
said.
In 10 years, Murray would like
BARAK to have “its own home,”
where it has space to do multiarts,
such as performance art,
and a gallery to display its work.
“I would like to see this
region more comfortable with
the public arts,” he said. “There
are a lot of wonderful artists out
there, and I would like to see
them able to show their stuff
and introduce a lot of kids to art
of all kinds.”
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Wendell Murray of BARAK Arts joins an art class
conducted by one of his teachers, Kimberly Helder.
For more information: BARAK Arts, 941
S. 13th St., Harrisburg, 717-724-0300 or
BARAKarts.org.
TheBurg 7