Collective Vision

For the Artists Behind 'From Edgewood to the Edge of the World,' A Massive Wall in Northeast Washington Wasn't a Stopping Place. It Was Where They -- and the Community -- Could Start Thinking Big.

QUEST SKINNER, 31, the District, teaches art to students from pre-kindergarten through middle school and exhibits at Eastern Market. This is her first major project working with aerosol.

"Generations of my family being musicians, music just flows through my blood. It has to go into every intricate thing. Either the brush stroke is music, or the actual instrument is there. Saxophones, the guitars, the trumpet. . . . Working with four or five other minds can get very chaotic. It is like dancing, to me. And since we've been close to the Metro, we've been hearing the train going back and forth -- the Red Line, the Yellow, the Blue, the Orange, the Green and my mythical Pink Line, and the Purple Line that has not yet been created. It's movement. That's my natural play on life."

POSE 2, who says he's in his 40s, San Diego, is a "graffiti writer" who has worked on large-scale murals for seven years. He has been an arts educator and has designed ads for Nike and Adidas.

"The thing that always stuck in my mind were the pillars sticking out of the wall. And I thought what are we gonna do with those? I haven't done a mural that had that kind of effect. . . . I was like, 'Wow, it would be cool to have huge people leaning against the wall, holding it up, real statuesque and powerful.' . . . I don't see a lot of artwork depicting Africans or African Americans in this cosmic future. Visualization is important. I want us to be seen in the future and the present as powerful beings. . . . This section is like a giant. You're looking up to yourself, and you're seeing yourself as gigantic. In reality in the universe we're tiny, but you're still ginormous. It's encouraging to think big."

JOSHUA MAYS, 33, Philadelphia, has exhibited from New York to Johannesburg, and prizes symmetry and meticulous detail. The Edgewood mural is the largest canvas he has worked on.

"This is a prime location on the wall because you can see it directly from the [Metro] line and it's in the center of the whole mural, so it's almost like the anchor point. . . . So the two faces are the element that I'm trying to use as a lure. . . . This particular one, I took a face that I use in another painting and mirrored it. And I think two faces facing each other is an expression of affection, somebody looking at another person eye-to-eye as well as being close, like to a potential kiss. . . . The fact that it's the same face is, I guess, a commentary on self-reflection and being able to stop and go inward every now and then and take those moments to appreciate self and what that means."

CHOR BOOGIE, 30, San Francisco, has had work commissioned in Beijing, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Melbourne, Australia, and has painted portraits for Jay-Z and Hugh Hefner.

"I usually do portraits. I decided to take portraiture to the next level, to just take images of any individual's face -- like a reference for eyes and nose and mouth -- and incorporate the color therapy aspect and form images with the colors. So it knocks out two birds with one stone. . . . Eyes are the windows of the soul. I've always been keen on eyes, and they're one of my favorite things to paint. They're so detailed, but they also have a little simplicity to them once they're done. . . . I just throw colors up there, boom boom boom. There's no process. I believe all colors go together. . . . I'm hoping it has a healing effect. I believe it'll bring life to this environment."

DECOY, 30, the District, primarily paints figures on a large scale using acrylic house paints, oil paint markers and spray paint.

"My work is very line-based. I try to keep it simple and really bold. My images are definitely more pop. . . . For me, all my drawings come from something pretty personal. They have a story behind them. . . . This image is from a photograph of me in college. I used to be a weaver in school, and once a year we would plan and save up for this giant yarn sale that was in Georgia. If you were a weaver, it was the yarn sale to be at. I met my ex-husband in college, and he had come with me one year on the crazy yarn trip, and that drawing is from a photo of us at this experience we'd shared. It was something fun and special. My relationship I had with that person, and everything I went through with him -- I guess this is supposed to represent the good times."