The Willy West mural was officially dedicated on Oct. 14, 2022. Lee Cole (Willy West Store Director), Middleton Mayor Brar, and Maria Schirmer Devitt (the lead artist) all said a few words to commemorate the occasion. 

The project began earlier this year with staff members proposing themes for the mural and then voting on their favorite one. DAMA (Developing Artists, Murals & Alliances) proposed three possible designs based on the top three vote-getting themes, and Willy West customers voted on their favorite design. DAMA designed the mural, entitled The Joy of Life, and offered public opportunities for community members to help paint it. The mural was installed during the week of Oct. 10th. Below is what Maria Schirmer Devitt shared at the dedication.

The Joy of Life

I believe we all come from people who tended to the earth, and that the earth tended to us right back. We are in a moment where it feels like we have lost our way. - I offer this mural as a reminder to imagine a way home. 

The bright star sun leads the way, a starting point for the life cycle. 

Then there are producers - the plants - they make their own food. Honestly, the magic of this boggles my mind. From the energy in the sun, they create food inside their green bodies. I included acorns of an oak savanna, one of the most endangered ecosystems that is native to Wisconsin. One of the defining characteristics of an oak savanna is the wide open space between the trees that allows the fire resistant oak branches to grow wide and for a myriad of other plants and creatures to flourish when the underbrush is cleared by fire. 

Then there are the consumers, like us and the animals, who rely on the producers to live. Their lives feed ours. One of my favorite times at the coop is the nascent spring when the ramps arrive in coiled bunches like soft little snakes sleeping. I was astonished to see them growing wild at a state park this spring, their green and red leaves greeting me from the trail. Then there are the decomposers, the fungi, the mushrooms, often overlooked, but providing the vital service of transformation. They use energy from lives that were lived and make life from the dead. They show us that nothing is ever truly lost. 

But, it’s not as linear as all that. The plants need us; the plants need the bees and the hummingbirds. We help them produce and reproduce. Their lives feed our lives. There are wildflowers that grace our state, trillium, blazing star, milkweed. 

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, describes cooperation of plants and humans together. In one chapter, she delves into “The genius of indigenous agriculture, the three sisters. Together these plants, corn, beans, and squash - feed the people, feed the land, and feed our imaginations, telling us how we might live.” As one of three sisters myself, this wisdom resonates deep within me. Notice the tall oldest sister, the corn stalk supporting the middle sister, the climbing beans around her, and the youngest sister, the squash spreading out to shade their tender roots. They cooperate and contribute to one another’s wellbeing, not competing. For more in depth reading, please read Braiding Sweetgrass; it is a love letter for life on earth. 

If you look closely at the mural, you will see footprints that were created by children in this community. Footprints show us where we have been, where others have been, and are only left when the soles of our feet touch the earth. We need your footprints on this earth, feeling the joy of life, helping us all get home. 

I want to show that we need everyone of us, I want to honor indigenous wisdom in agriculture, and offer footprints leading us home to ourselves and each other.