Signs of the Times
Homewood muralist takes his message to the masses
BY JEANA DURST
Art has the power to bring people together.
For those of us who hadn’t noticed our city’s
murals before, the quarantine shut down certainly
made them more prominent. All of a sudden as
life waned, we found ourselves
outside, perhaps seeing our
buildings and towns through
new eyes in the sudden silence.
In Homewood, one mural
artist captured our collective
attention in March with an
encouraging message: “We are
all in this together.” The blank
white wall at Battle Republic
on the corner of 18th Street
and Central Avenue was, for a
brief period of time, a canvas
for our shared experience
since been painted over, the effect was lasting—
we’ve seen an example of how murals can unify
us and even bring hope. I recently caught up with
Shawn Fitzwater while he was on break from
painting a bus to discuss that mural as well as
other projects he is spearheading in town.
The “we are all in this together” mural was
unsanctioned. What Fitzwater describes as a
“rush job,” it was completed in about 10 hours in
the cover of night. “I showed up with a straight
edge, a level, and a pencil, and I laid it out in one
night,” Fitzwater says. The idea came to him one
day toward the beginning of quarantine while he
was driving around and experiencing a slowdown
of his business. “I just wanted to use my skills
to spread a positive message,” he says, adding
that after a lot of agonizing, he decided, “I’m
had painted without asking permission. “I had
passed that wall in Homewood so many times
and thought about painting it for so long,” he
explains. Plus, Fitzwater had already been talking
to Battle Republic before the pandemic struck,
but their talks were put on hold because of the
coronavirus quarantine. Fitzwater says he knew if
they got mad, he was fully prepared to paint over
8 Bham Family July 2020
it and that it could be done easily on an all-white
wall.
It turns out he didn’t have to worry about that.
The Battle Republic owners and the building’s
landlord appreciated the art—and so did,
seemingly, everyone else. Perhaps the message
of hope was especially
powerful because it seemed
to connect us during a time
when connection with others
was precisely what we were
missing. “The very next day I
started seeing posts on social
media and saying thank you
to whoever did this—I knew
it would get attention, but it
happened rapidly,” Fitzwater
says. After a few days, he
fessed up and went back to
sign it. However, the mural
was short-lived, lasting only
a few weeks. The landlord had already decided
to repaint the whole wall during the pandemic
before the mural went up, and he proceeded with
plans to repaint. But the message took on a life of
its own, serving another purpose. Vulcan Apparel
owners approached Shawn about making the
mural into a T-shirt. “We sold over 250 shirts and
raised over $3,000, which was used to buy food
from local restaurants and feed the local medical
care workers,” he says.
Now Fitzwater plans to recreate this
message on a downtown wall as part of a larger
Birmingham muralist collective project he is
spearheading. As of press time it was set for a
wall outside of The Pizitz Food Hall on 2nd
Avenue North and 19th Street. The wall will
be apportioned among several artists who can
showcase their unique style on different sections
of the wall. The common thread in the separate
murals will be the interpretation of hope during
these times. Ultimately, it will combine many
essence, reminding us once again that we are in
“this” together.
To learn more about Shawn Fitzwater and his art, visit