A mural in Maine pits Gov. Paul LePage against labor unions

Inside, Jackson walked down a gray hallway and abruptly turned right. “Here’s the notorious room,” he said, in a borderline French Canadian accent. White blotches mottled the bare beige walls from which workers had removed the mural. The space was no bigger, and no more glamorous, than a dentist’s waiting room. “Look at how bad it looks now,” Jackson said.

He started making inquiries and was politely asked to wait in the Cesar Chavez conference room. As he lingered, he explained that the governor had demonstrated his intention to crack down on workers early on when Republicans folded the legislature’s Labor Committee, which Jackson chaired, into the Business Committee. “Everyone knew he was a shoot-from-the-hip kind of guy,” he said. “But now he’s shooting everybody.”

Personal Post

• 
• 
• 
• 

(MATTHEW CAVANAUGH/ For The Washington Post ) - Maine State Senator Troy Jackson is pictured at the Maine's Dept of Labor in Augusta, ME. Jackson is a upset that a mural by artist Judy Taylor depicting important stories in Maine's labor history, was removed.

After a few minutes, Jackson grew impatient and continued his search out in the hallway. He arrived at a door in the corner of the building. It read Maintenance Personnel Only, and some peering through the glass brought out a stony-faced worker who referred Jackson to Bill Dowling, the building manager.

“We’re not disclosing the location, and I don’t see this happening,” said Dowling, a former mayor of Augusta and member of Le­Page’s transition team. He assured Jackson that the mural’s panels were “in storage, high and dry,” and explained that the state was “one of my biggest tenants” and that he had promised the governor not to “release it until I hear from you moving forward.”

Jackson then rang Bennett in the governor’s office. The spokeswoman echoed Dowling, assuring him that the panels were in a “high and dry place.” Jackson appealed to Bennett as a taxpayer and elected official. She replied, dryly, “I understand it keeps the story going, Senator.”

The controversy continues

On Friday afternoon, the Portland Museum of Art held a panel discussion about the mural. It drew such a large crowd that museum workers set up live feeds on two televisions outside the auditorium. The panel included Taylor, art historians and a conservative radio host who, to snickers and gasps, argued the side of the absent governor. A large white screen above the panelists displayed a projected image of the mural.

After the discussion, Taylor, 56, wearing a pink button-front shirt, black skirt and glasses, looked at the projected panels with more than a hint of exhaustion and called the governor’s criticism “silly.” Still, she offered to take LePage up on his call for a complimentary mural featuring businessmen, though she had some reservations. “How boring would that be as a painting? People talking on cellphones — who wants to see that?” she said.

She had another idea. She could paint a mural of LePage surrounded by all the episodes of his life. And what would he look like in the panel depicting the great public art controversy of 2011?

“Despair,” she said.