A bluebird soars above the Lake Michigan shoreline, flying past beaches, harbors and familiar stretches of Chicago’s lakefront. For muralist Shawn Bullen, the bird isn’t just another detail. It’s a tribute to his best friend.
Nearly a decade after painting his first mural with the Evanston Mural Arts Program on the Metra embankment at Elmwood Avenue and Davis Street, Bullen has returned to create a companion mural piece immediately beside it.
Invitation to reception for Bullen’s mural. Credit: Provided by Shawn Bullen
The new mural, which will be unveiled during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 13, continues the visual conversation Bullen began in 2017.
“In every block in Evanston there’s like a new little nook, and I think it’s just something that we all take for granted,” Bullen said. “So I just kind of figured, why not remind people?”
The mural imagines the wall as a window. Facing west, Bullen said, it is painted as though the concrete has disappeared, revealing Lake Michigan and a continuous shoreline stretching from Chicago through Evanston.
The bluebird perched above the lake is a tribute to Bullen’s best friend, Chris, who died in a boating accident in 2010. It was the same weekend Bullen was supposed to paint his first professional mural alongside him, he said.
“Chris’ mom, obviously devastated, got a call from the Coast Guard, and apparently, there was this little bluebird that was just chilling on the boat,” Bullen said.
The bluebird has become a recurring symbol in Bullen’s work, honoring his late best friend, Chris. Credit: Alexia Sextou
Chris’ mother later took the bird in as a pet, Bullen said. Since his friend’s death, the bluebird has become a recurring symbol in Bullen’s work.
“The paintings I make are usually in honor of my friends,” Bullen said.
Long before Bullen was painting murals across North America, he grew up in Hyde Park and was “really involved in making art,” he said. He now lives in New York City.
After becoming friends with various graffiti artists, Bullen said, he was drawn to the art form, which he described as “a very exciting thing” with “a little element of danger.”
Before becoming a muralist, Bullen and his friends would climb into abandoned buildings and search for anywhere they could paint, he said. When Bullen was 18, he and his friends painted graffiti on the rooftop of a neighborhood produce market. After turning himself in, Bullen spent a night in jail before returning to the building to remove the graffiti.
“Next thing you know, I am getting the opportunity to clean it off,” Bullen said. “The owner of the business was joking, kind of saying, ‘If you had asked for permission, we could have let you do something nice.’”
To young Bullen’s surprise, the produce market owner later offered Bullen the chance to paint one of his old trucks covered in graffiti. Bullen designed a mural featuring vegetables turned into characters, earning his first paid commission.
“I was pretty grateful for him. This started my career,” Bullen said.
Spray paint cans sit organized by color as Bullen works on his new mural in Evanston. Credit: Alexia Sextou
Bullen soon joined City Year, a Chicago nonprofit where he helped paint community murals.
Looking back, Bullen chuckled at some of his earliest work. He said the experience gave him opportunities to revisit those murals and improve them as his skills developed.
After attending art school in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bullen painted city-funded murals in Canada before deciding to spend much of his 20s traveling and painting wherever he could. He accepted opportunities across North America, later completing murals in places including San Francisco and Mexico City.
“Whether it was paid or unpaid, I just painted,” he said.
Bullen sorts through dozens of spray paint cans while working on his companion mural. He said he brings a wide range of colors to the site each day to build the mural layer by layer. Credit: Alexia Sextou
Bullen said working with San Francisco’s Arts Commission marked another turning point, as it allowed him to take on larger projects and devote more time to each piece.
Returning to Evanston felt like revisiting an earlier chapter of his career, Bullen said. He first worked with Dustin Harris and Lea Pinsky, co-founders of the Evanston Mural Arts Program, through Rogers Park’s Mile of Murals project before painting his first mural for the Evanston Mural Arts Program in 2017.
After returning last summer to touch up that mural, Bullen said, he was invited by Evanston Art Encounter to create the companion piece now taking shape beside it on Elmwood.
“Evanston’s always one place I have enjoyed coming,” Bullen said.
Community-minded Evanston resident Bob Easter, who lives across from the concrete wall at 1570 Elmwood Ave., had long imagined what the blank embankment could become. After meeting Pinsky at a networking event, Easter approached Art Encounter with the idea of extending Bullen’s original mural down the block.
“I guess I just got the idea of mixing kind of a boring concrete wall in front of our building that I walked by several times every day with Art Encounter’s murals,” Easter said.
Muralist Shawn Bullen paints details into the CTA ‘L’ train featured in his companion mural, which depicts a continuous shoreline stretching from Chicago to Evanston. Credit: Alexia Sextou
Over the following months, neighborhood residents, businesses and community partners came together to raise $35,000 to bring the project to life, Easter said.
“We had some very gracious friends, gracious and generous friends, and neighbors who contributed,” he said.
Having worked with Bullen for more than 15 years, Pinsky said bringing him back to Elmwood was “an easy decision.” When the opportunity arose to expand the Elmwood mural, she said there was little debate about who should paint it.
“Shawn is extremely talented. He’s got an intense attention to detail and he’s also just a really kind-hearted, gentle soul,” Pinsky said. “So, I said, ‘Why don’t we just call Shawn?’ And everybody was in agreement.”
Bullen uses a spray can fitted with a specialized cap, which he said allows him to control the width and intensity of the paint as he adds details to his mural. Credit: Alexia Sextou
The mural’s greatest success would be simple: bringing joy to those who pass by and putting a smile on their faces, Easter said.
Tim Henderson, an artist, poet and longtime friend of Bullen who goes by “Toaster,” said Bullen’s outgoing personality is what draws people into conversation wherever he paints.
“He’s the most sociable guy,” Toaster said. “People from all over the community are gonna come and talk to him. All of a sudden, he just kind of becomes friends with everybody.”
Bullen said those simple interactions are among “the most meaningful” parts of his work.
While he was painting the Elmwood mural, he said, a woman stopped to tell him she had been having a terrible day before walking past the wall.
“She said to me that she got some bad news about somebody’s health and that this mural made her day much better,” Bullen said. “That is exactly why I’m doing it.”
Toaster said Bullen is a really “supportive” friend and rarely misses his friend’s open mic performances. The two have spent countless hours talking about art over the years, challenging and inspiring one another creatively.
That same approach carries over to Bullen’s murals, Toaster said. He spends long days painting while chatting with anyone who stops by.
“If you get the chance to talk to him, bring that man some Gatorade,” Toaster said. “He’s been out there a really long time.”
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