Hope House to host open house for Eagle mural in Bemidji

Hope House will host an open house for The Eagle Mural from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 27, at the Hope House Drop-In Center in Bemidji, giving residents a chance to see a completed project tied to Mental Health Awareness Month.

The mural was created by Hope House members under the leadership of artist Wesley May and was funded by a $4,520 Region 2 Arts Council grant. Hope House is pairing the open house with a May display at the Bemidji Public Library, where photos and related art from the project are on view ahead of the event. Hope House says members are encouraged to invite their families.

The mural’s path to completion stretched across spring. The project began with a March 3 session to learn about it, followed by drawing ideas in pastel on March 10. A March 17 talking circle focused on the eagle project’s cultural values, and the work moved to the walls on March 18 and continued March 20. Hope House said the Eagle painting wrapped up March 24, and April 27 was set aside to install the library collage and select photos.

The project carries extra weight because it sits inside Hope House’s long-running mental-health work in Beltrami County. The organization describes itself as a community support program for people with serious and persistent mental illness and says the program has been available in the county since 1980. Community Support Systems, Inc. has administered Hope House programs since 1990, and the organization has been ARMHS-certified through the Minnesota Department of Human Services since 2002.

May brings his own local history to the project. Bemidji State University and the U.S. Department of the Interior identify him as an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and a Bemidji-based muralist. His previous public work includes a mural in the student lounge at Bemidji State University’s American Indian Resource Center and a large mural project at Bemidji’s wastewater treatment facility. In that context, the Eagle Mural, using the Ojibwe word Migizi, becomes more than decoration. It is a public marker of shared work, cultural values and mental-health visibility in the center of Bemidji.