Pinky Bass

I was working with students at SOE who were producing tiles to be used in the mural on the building across from the Museum. I had brought Pinky’s Portable Pop-up Pinhole Camera and Darkroom and we were doing some pinhole camera work. The portraits were made from 35mm photographs of the students working on that mural project. I took the glazed tiles, coated the surface with light sensitive emulsion (probably Liquid Light) and projected the enlarged image onto that surface, in the same manner one would project an image onto pre-coated photographic paper. The tiles were then processed in the same way black and white photo paper would be treated in a darkroom.

In the 1990’s these young men and women created the Birmingham Urban Mural, which is the largest public sculpture in Alabama – containing over 25,000 tiles of Alabama clay handcrafted by these City Center Art youth and community members. The 60’ by 100’ wall depicts a mythological creature and is filled with positive local industrial symbolism, a signature of SOE. The Mural is the product of five years of work, as a result of a commission sponsored by the City of Birmingham. The project became a summer job for the children of City Center Art, who received stipends. Thirty parents and other community adults were trained as artist’s assistants, providing some with their first jobs ever. The massive half-million dollar project stands in the center of Birmingham, on the eastern façade of the Municipal Auditorium, where it forms a ceremonial entrance to the city.