During his latest artistic project, Trinity Christian College professor John Bakker learned what a rich patchwork of people live in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood, though that South Side community isn’t always portrayed that way in the media.
All that beauty, often in the face of poverty and violence, fits in with Bakker’s view of unlimited potential, no matter an individual’s vocation or place in society.
“For me, the Judeo-Christian tradition asserts right at the beginning of the Bible that all of us are made in God’s image,” said Bakker, a professor of Art and Design who also directs the Seerveld Gallery at the college in Palos Heights. “What that means is that each of us, no matter what we’ve accomplished, is intrinsically valuable.”
Bakker put that philosophy into his portraits of more than 200 Roseland residents, giving longtime Alderman Anthony Beale the same play as Chris Patton, a youth who has attended Sunday morning breakfasts at a area church. Bakker still is adding more portraits.
It meant zeroing in on Old Fashioned Donuts, owned and run by Burritt Bulloch, who is in his 80s and for decades has put his heart into his baking. It also meant focusing on Louis Lucien, neighbor of Shawn Holt, whose dad, Morris Holt led Magic Slim and the Teardrops, a blues band in Chicago. The band is now run by his son and goes by the name, Shawn Holt and the Teardrops.
“The foreground is just this rich, wonderful life of those people,” said Bakker, who lives in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood but spent many a day in Roseland talking to parishioners at Roseland Christian Ministries, which collaborated on his project. He asked church members to send him pictures of their choice, so Bakker’s painted portraits would be images of how they saw themselves.
The portraits have been painted on plywood boxes, so they can be shown not only at the college’s Seerveld Gallery, but also the church, doughnut shop and even the recent Council for Christian Colleges and Universities International Forum in Dallas.
Bakker sized each photo, created a line drawing and transferred it to the panel, painting over it. It’s often been an emotional ride.
“There are times, like last week at the conference in Dallas, by the time I was done, I was just trying to keep it together because there are just images that are really, really moving,” Bakker said.
The project was done partly in honor of Andrew Taylor, 16, a member of the church who was murdered in 2016. Parishioners felt honored, too.
“People felt seen and were honored to have their portraits painted,” said Pastor Joe Huizenga. “You see the breadth of people and giftedness of the community. You don’t just see Roseland as a headline in a news story.”
Several of Huizenga’s parishioners described the impact of being seen through the project.
“I’ve been clean and sober for six years now after using crack cocaine my whole adult life,” said LaVelle Rice. “I love that I can see myself how others see me. I am somebody.”
At Trinity, Michael Vander Weele, professor emeritus of English, and Brad Breems, professor emeritus of sociology, have been big supporters of Bakker’s work.
Vander Weele had already seen the value in an earlier community portrait project Bakker did in downstate Galesburg.
“I loved the idea of his doing something like that at Roseland,” said Vander Weele, who has helped with a Sunday morning breakfast for people at Roseland Christian Ministries through his own Oak Forest church.
He also directed two students in their internships at the Roseland church, and their work was displayed in a book of eight essays, “Voices of Redemption.”
“It helped readers recognize the spiritual resources of the people at RCM. And the students were nearly bowled over by the hospitality they received,” said Vander Weele.
Breems has worshipped with his family at a church in Roseland for 34 years and knows Andre Taylor’s grandmother. He pointed out that Seerveld Arts in Society Initiative came up with the idea for the project with Roseland Christian ministries.
“We want to honor all the youths of our neighborhood by situating them among their elders and neighbors, the vast majority of whom simply want to live in security and hope,” said Breems. “This installation of ordinary, colorfully portrayed people from all walks of life is a testimony to their forbearance and dignity.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
