Visual Art

LGBT Community Sends Message through Local Art Installment

Lisa de Felice, photos by Andrea Paulseth |

    Kessia Neu and Kelly Farrar, two students at UW-Eau Claire, have demonstrated the progress of Eau Claire as a community through their artwork. Neu and Farrar are the creators of a large square mural on display at Scooters, outside on the bar’s south wall. The mural consists of dozens of people covering their mouths in a movement of silence, Neu said, to symbolize the LGBT community’s Day of Silence. “We wanted to do it in our own way,” she said, “and that’s why every person in the installation is doing something different.” The mural is titled Progress, which Neu and Farrar chose to help symbolize the LGBT community. The project is made out of wheat paste and was supposed to have been washed away by the rain already, but has somehow managed to hold on. It seems as though Progress has a safe place in Eau Claire.