A massive and intricate new mural of a rabbit snagged in a thorny raspberry bush towers from the side of the Columbia College Student Center in the South Loop.
The white rabbit on a peach background is covered with swirls of blue floral line work and spans top-to-bottom on the multi-story mural. Green thorn branches bearing purple berries surround him, with flowers bursting in between. The mural, titled “Curious Bunny,” is at 754 S. Wabash Avenue, near the corner of 8th Street. It can be spotted from the street and the Orange and Green line L trains that run nearby. It's about 120 feet tall by 100 feet across.
“I love thinking about people who look up from their phones, seeing that giant bunny,” says muralist Cheri Lee Charlton, a Columbia College assistant professor of design in the Illustration Program. She painted the mural over four weeks last summer with a team of Columbia College students.
“The college wanted to do something happy and cheerful,” Charlton says. “There was no way we were going to pass up a wall that big. No matter what.”
The mural is the largest Charlton has painted in her 16-year career, she says. By her rough calculations, Curious Bunny may be the second-largest mural in Chicago and the largest painted by a woman. The largest may be the Kerry James Marshall Mural at the Chicago Cultural Center. That mural is 132 feet wide and 100 feet tall and features 20 women who influenced Chicago's thriving arts and culture scene.
Charlton rented a boom lift and employed a project manager. The students weren't certified to drive the lift, she says, so she donned a harness and painted the mural’s upper echelons while they handled much of the lower 13 feet.
The team started making stencils for the detailed line work throughout the piece, she says, but they soon realized that would take too much time. So, all of the line work was drawn freehand with spray paint. The larger swaths of color were painted with exterior latex paint.
Charlton says she sees the bunny escaping a thorn bush as a metaphor for students overcoming challenges as they grow into adulthood and strive toward their goals.
“I felt this mural concept was perfect for Columbia College, because I could allow the rabbit to represent the curiosity and drive I have seen in so many of my students over the years,” she says. “The bunny is surrounded by thorn bushes and in an active pose, representing the intelligence, hard work and resourcefulness it takes to conquer the challenges life may present — all while finding joy, life lessons and rewards in the exploration of the more-challenging paths we take.”
The mural also serves as a tribute to children’s author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, an early female pioneer in the history of illustration who is best known for her tales about Peter Rabbit, Charlton says.
Along with honoring the students inside the building’s walls, the mural is part of the Wabash Arts Corridor, a stretch of Wabash Avenue between East Van Buren Street and East Roosevelt Road. Started in 2015, the strip now is populated with murals and is a destination for public art lovers.
For Charlton, that appreciation is personal.
“I love when I go to work now and see people taking photos of it,” she says. “I hope it brings joy to people in the community and makes the students proud to go into that space.”
The mural was sponsored by Behr Paint, Home Depot, Wooster Brush Company and One Summer Chicago, which connects Chicago teens with summer jobs.
