We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Luke Beekman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Luke, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Like so many creatives, I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally since I was very young. In school, I was always writing stories and poetry, had a camera in my hand, started composing music, and illustrating comics. I was very independent and taught myself how to animate and edit video, and was interested in all things art and technology. I really started gravitating towards video production in high school. I started entering video contests in Ohio. And when I submitted my video and film portfolio to the National Foundation for the Advancement of Young Arts as a high school senior, it was a turning point for me as a young artist. When I was selected in the Cinematic Arts category to take part in YoungArts Week. It was a plane ticket to Miami, and an incredible week of creative enrichment, exhibitions, and a celebration of young artists across the nation.

When I came back from that experience, I was a freshman in college, studying Psychology. Having just been a part of YoungArts, witnessing and taking part in so much creative talent across every kind of artistic discipline, it completely changed my trajectory. I knew that I needed to continue pursuing art and follow my passions. I transferred from a Psychology major at Kent State in Ohio to the University of Miami in Florida, and I started studying Creative Writing and Film. I started writing longer-form music compositions for piano, and immersed myself in the campus and surrounding community. I was determined to complete a short film before I graduated, which I wrote, directed, and edited. College was enriching, an investment, and a hustle. I pushed myself knowing I would only have so much time in the bubble of higher education. Because pursuing a creative career in the real world was going to be an uphill endeavor. A part of me never wanted to leave the University, or Miami. When I came home, I knew I was leaving the sunshine behind, but I was also bringing some with me.

After college, I came back to my hometown of Mansfield, Ohio, and like many creatives, I found it really challenging to find a career in my creative studies. They call it the “Brain Drain”, where the college-educated leave their hometowns, so the smaller cities across America are often sapped of the educational enrichment and talent to bigger cities. I was committed to creating a path for a creative career here in Mansfield, moving into the historic downtown area, an hour between Cleveland and Columbus, where signs of a burgeoning creative culture were coming into focus. I spent years in different jobs, some creative side hustles, but mostly it was a career in sales, marketing, and general management. After my day job, I taught photography, poetry, and mixed-media poetry classes at the Mansfield Art Center. I started Dojo Comics and hosted classes at my own studio in downtown to young artists talented in comics, anime, and storytelling. I shot a few video commercials for business contacts. And as I worked a regular job and side-hustled my creative career, I learned a lot about branding and business, which were vital lessons. However, the most important lesson was getting to know the community and immersing myself in the arts and culture that was taking root.

I live in downtown in a small studio apartment flat above a pharmacy, in the heart of a small but growing, vibrant city. And I wanted to use my skill sets and talents to be a part of the creative culture here, and to grow it. I was determined to carve a path for myself, as well as for others behind me in the field. I saw the artistic talent in the woodwork, the potential that a public art platform could have as part of Mansfield’s downtown revitalization efforts. What started as a single mural project on the side of the homeless shelter helped me to see what was possible in public art. Local artists were willing to do the work, but we needed more outlets, and for artists to be compensated fairly for their work. A standard process for the city’s public art, had not yet been created. This was the path for me to start charting, for myself and others. This was the beginning of my journey, ten years ago, when I founded a nonprofit Mankind Murals Inc in 2015 to help my community, to promote artists, and to create a platform for public art to thrive.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Mankind Murals Inc pursued our first mural as a nonprofit, along our bike trail, under the 4th Street Bridge. I wrote a grant and we secured funding for the project through the Richland County Foundation. The selected artist, Mark Calloway, is an accomplished black artist and a friend of mine, and the father of one of my most talented students and self published comic artist, Isaac Calloway. Our nonprofit board chose from three of Mark’s artworks submitted to adapt to the bridge underpass. The board selected “6:07 am,” a vibrant depiction of nature and birds in a modern style. The bridge itself was an area of juvenile tagging, which contributed to the perception that the Mansfield area of the bike trail was unsafe. This project would help transform the space and how the bike trail and Mansfield are perceived. After the mural was completed, we applied a clear coat made of silicone, essentially a graffiti-proofing measure that would allow us to wipe away future tagging with soap, water, and a scrub brush. We learned so much through this process, and other community partners chipped in. Richland Public Health donated a bench so that walkers, runners, dog walkers, and visitors could sit and view the mural. People could enjoy the beauty of nature that both the bike trail and the mural provided. It was a mural that solidified that idea that art can prevail in spaces that felt unsafe, and that all walks of life can enjoy public art.

Since that first mural project, we have supported public art on many more walls, crosswalks, art installations throughout Mid-Ohio, both inside and out. We’ve helped to support artists, and help launch creative careers. I’ve helped to navigate and negotiate creative risks, helping businesses and organizations express their identity in new and creative ways. I took on roles in various sectors of community development, chairing the Mansfield Art Sector for two years, and helped steer community projects, art events, and local arts funding from an economic development perspective. And when the City of Mansfield created an ordinance for a Public Arts Commission, I was selected as the ex officio member as a community educator. As the first chair for three years, I helped Mansfield lay the groundwork for establishing community guidelines and core values for public art, vetted artists, and then published their portfolios as a resource. I’m proud of the progress made in our community, and for all the trust given to me, by the city, and the creatives here, to collaborate toward that shared vision. Public Art now has a more official place to exist in our downtown, and it takes us down a beautiful path. It reestablishes our community’s identity as we reimagine a place. Not just adding color, but value. Not just telling one person’s story, but inspiring the stories of many.

One of the unique stories we helped to author through public art was at our Mansfield Richland County Public Library. Three artists envisioned three walls of the Bookmobile bus garage, in a public art project we called “Books Move Your Imagination”. Each artist depicted a unique idea through their design. Artist Allison Pence transformed the bookmobile garage doors as giant bookcases, with a resident mouse named Booker, and classic fantasy imagery and a beanstalk unfurling in the space above, called “Once Upon a Library”. On the second wall, artist Demetrius Howell created a visual story “Right at the Tip of the Mind”, painting a giant portrait of his son Zion with a big open book on his lap, a cosmic scene of illustrated thought bubbles before him, expressing the wonder that books create when images and stories appear in our mind. The final scene connected books back to nature in “Wild About Books”, where artist Robin Shoup-Wilson painted a mural of a landscape teeming with wildlife rising up from a book: lions, leopards, giraffe, koalas, and monkeys gazing back at the viewer, as books inform and inspire us about the natural world. When these three murals were completed, I saw the potential to elevate the mural narrative one step further. I started a program called “Mural Stories” and partnered with the Library to invite writers of all ages to use these three murals, and public artworks across our community, as inspiration for crafting poetry and storytelling. I wrote and produced an audio narrative that connected all three murals at the library, complete with sound effects that aligned with the imagery in the artworks. We hosted a Mural Stories event during the summer, played the audio stories and opened the mic for selected writings to be read aloud, and awarded the works of youth, teen and adult writers. Mural Stories was an incredible way for our community to connect the visual arts accomplished here, and springboard the creativity of writers. So many stories, poems, and unique perspectives can exist inside a mural multiverse.

Murals have the unique potential for placemaking, and can invite creative collaboration. In our studio lot downtown, at Mankind Murals Inc, I wanted to work with artists to create a unique wallscape that would not only combine artistic mediums, but help to transform the studio lot into a space that could host events and local performances. In a project titled “LuminousCity” we connected with local photographer and business owner Braxton Daniels III, using his long exposure photography at night, with trailing red and white headlights and tailights, to become the backdrop of a luminous scene. We printed his photograph on a canvas, and invited artists Robin Shoup-Wilson and Allison Pence to paint a colorful array of northern lights in the sky. This mix of in-camera magic, combined with the creative talents of artists, was meant to push the bounds of the public art medium. By photographing that canvas, and reproducing it on large format vinyl, we installed it using SignSpring to the wall sized 20ft x 57ft in our downtown lot. LuminousCity was a celebration of how big, bright, and expressive our city could become through creative collaboration. We installed cafe lights zig-zagging above the studio lot that illuminate like stars when the sun goes down. With this artwork as the backdrop, we have hosted multiple events, concerts, and even watched the epic totality that was visible from downtown Mansfield during the 2024 solar eclipse. While it is still a common parking lot during the day, LuminousCity has transformed the space into something more. And it’s our intent to continue developing the space, to install additional art frames to the adjacent walls, and plans to create greenspace along the perimeter of the lot. With public art, and in this LuminousCity, we are making strides toward converting an ordinary parking lot into an extraordinary space, an outdoor art gallery and a venue for events and performances to continue shining light. It illuminates our artistic culture.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Society needs artists to continue expressing our unique identities, stories, and humanity. We need society to keep making space for human expression. Public art is more than just creating a colorful backdrop to our cities’ walls, bridges, and lots. Murals are an opportunity to inspire us, connect us back to our emotional and spiritual selves, and reflect the human need to see beyond the ordinary. Murals can bring people together. And so these big, bold, larger-than-life artworks are for everyone, and remind us that we are a society of ideas and diverse people, with important and sometimes challenging purposes.

Art can help to relay and express the bigger cause. The reasons why nonprofit organizations, religious organizations, and grassroots coalitions have a mission, and are doing such important work, are often based in higher ideals and are driven with purpose towards those goals. By working with artists, and helping to realize those ideas through art, organizations can take a significant step in the direction of connecting people with their mission. When Mankind Murals Inc has had the opportunity to work with youth at Richland County Juvenile Detention Center, we created a mural canvas program where these kids had a hand in shaping the ideas of the artwork. The artist outlined the concept, and the youth were able to create something constructive and leave a positive mark on the walls of the detention center. When Mankind Murals Inc worked with artist Jayne Stalkhe, and we later created another mural canvas program for adults at the Community Alternative Center, an OMHAS-certified drug and alcohol residential treatment program, and a pay-to-stay jail alternative program. Murals and large format canvas projects, can not only exist, but thrive in places where people need help, and the person-to-person interaction where artists are akin to therapists, and the mere opportunity for people to be inspired and take part in a mural becomes something more. The image of hands outstretched, holding a heart made of individual thumbprints, from clients in recovery, becomes a more permanent beacon of hope and expression of individuality. Art and the steady hand of working artists, has a unique way of not only improving the atmosphere of a facility, but helping the mission and the people inside of it, taking steps toward their own brighter futures. Art and artists can be integrated in the mission, and to help artists and nonartists alike to help create focus, purpose, and connection in the broad brushstrokes. When we partnered with Richland County Children’s Services, we created a program called “Through the Eyes of a Child” where ten artists would create murals that were inspired by the imagination and hopefulness of children, to raise awareness for the annual child abuse prevention and adoption awareness months. Ten artists with approved designs, created canvases on 4′ x 8′ exterior planks, and were unveiled on the Renaissance Theatre and the Buckeye Imagination Museum. In an outward way, these artworks spoke to the awareness of children, often without a voice in abuse, and yet the artwork was able to transcend that into a variety of visual stories of adoption and hope. After being unveiled, and displayed for a number of years in Mansfield’s Imagination District, many of those artworks were transported and permanently installed at the Domestic Violence Shelter. As it seems to come full circle in a community, these artworks and their artists now have the opportunity to directly impact the atmosphere of a safe place and a temporary home, where women and children shelter to escape abuse and child abuse. When pastor Paul Lintern reached out to describe a vision of a Jericho Wall, the mission was to honor those that the community has lost to addiction and overdose, while the artwork would help to inspire the story of recovery. It was to be a point of inspiration located on church property in a rough part of the neighborhood, and the conversion of this wall would be an act of intentional placemaking. The Jericho Wall had multiple scenes of Recovery, both secular and nonsecular, from different artists, interpreting the theme through metaphors like broken chains, birds set free from their cages, and even the image of the wall itself coming down. Most important, was that a portion of the wall was dedicated to adding names, a memorial for those who wanted to share their story, where families and friends of those lost to addiction could know that in their loss, they were not alone. I believe that art and creative interpretations such as murals have a significant place in a community. Murals can help to signify the importance of great causes, and underline the good work being done to help others. And in some cases, although its impact is almost impossible to measure: Art helps people.

When businesses, both big and small, embrace the work of artists and creatives to tell their story, their purpose becomes that much more personal, relatable, and identifiable. The Hursh Pharmacy, where our studio is located above, is more than a historic brick-and-mortar building housing the practical necessities of a local drug store. The pharmacy outwardly expresses through its mural, a unique identity. Through Mankind Murals, artist Sam Schneider created the portrait of a young woman, the pharmacist, calming and comforting her sick child in the framework of a mortar and pestle. It’s a striking and memorable mural to identify the pharmacy. During the early stages of the pandemic, Mankind Murals partnered with OhioHealth to create a temporary artwork called “We Flatten the Curve”. It was a labor of love and sincere hope, during a time of great uncertainty in our collective society. And we helped to shape the story through that partnership, front page news on Memorial Day 2020, and picked up by the nightly news in Cleveland, a story that even during the pandemic, we could placate our fears and instead represent hope through our shared humanity in art. Society needs to continue this embrace, opening its doors to the creative possibilities. Cities can further cement a place for public art, doing what Mansfield did, creating an ordinance and a Public Art Commission to establish core values, legitimize, and provide opportunities for public art in public spaces. Foundations and nonprofit organizations can identify public art and creative collaborations as a key facet of their outreach, and it can be a vital part of their mission in the communities they serve.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My creative journey started as an aspiring filmmaker, a medium that combines visual storytelling with performance, music, and requires the work of a multitude of artists and craftsmanship. I can see public art through a similar lens. Public art and murals set the stage for a multitude of creative expression. Public art can take on different narratives, and shine a light on various communities and causes. I’ve chosen this path, and this form of visual storytelling because it has a profound impact in a remarkably different way. Doing so, has been challenging, and transformational. Murals make a direct impact on a place and in a community. It allows us to rethink and reimagine our neighborhoods as a destination. It encourages collaboration. Public art drives me to continue my journey as an artist, and a collaborative artist, because I love seeing the impact that these visual stories continue to tell. I love seeing the ways that artists tell these stories, in my community and beyond. Since the earliest days of mankind, some of the earliest record of creative expression was found on the walls of caves. And we have evolved our visual language so incredibly, developing unique styles, street art, stencils, and new methods of installation, all for the mission of telling our stories on the walls of our current culture. Beyond canvas, there is something so much more visceral and innate to creating a mural, and placemaking. I see my own personal journey, in the heart of my hometown, pushing the forefront of public art today with a sense of wonderment, optimism, and responsibility. I’m driven by the potential to continue shaping spaces through public artwork that uplift and inspire. It lets the rest of the world see the community with fresh eyes. I see the opportunity in every project, to help shape and be a part of a bigger picture. It is my goal to continue serving my city, and the artists and creatives. We’re continuing a collective story of our history. With the responsibility of a culture keeper, I’m driven from a place that starts with grassroots and continues to grow. In the act of redefining our landscape and beautifying our communities, it allows imaginations to blossom, including my own. And it takes me on a creative journey to find even more ways for public art to thrive.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.MankindMurals.org

Image Credits

Moments by Marissa (First headshot)
Destination Mansfield (IMG-0077)
Mankind Murals Inc