Ryan Adams’ voice is in his paintbrush.
When he heard the “terrifying” news that 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was killed by a federal agent July 13 in Biddeford, he turned to his art as a way to express his grief and frustration. He is planning to paint a mural in Biddeford honoring Guerrero, with fellow artist Erica Sedler.
“I’m not some crazy speech writer, or a laywer who can change public policy, but I can use my skill set to speak to a larger audience,” said Adams, 41, a muralist and sign painter in Portland.
The planned Biddeford mural is just one of the ways Maine artists and musicians are honoring Guerrero, or protesting the tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“American Idol” finalist Julia Gagnon Haven will sing at events to honor Guerrerro, including a possible benefit concert being planned with help from Biddeford city officials. A group of Maine-based artists known as the Artists’ Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) have made signs and banners protesting ICE and donated them to people for rallies and marches. An affiliated group, LumenARRT!, made a video of a peace dove flying over Biddeford. And Saco folk musician Bob Wiegers has organized a benefit concert on July 30 at Sacred Profane Brewery in Biddeford.
Guerrero was killed Monday as ICE agents tried to execute a warrant for someone else. Guerrero, a native of Colombia, was pulled from his car and left on the street, where his wife and young daughter saw him.
For Adams, who is Black and the father of two young children, Guerrerro’s death had scary parallels.
THE POWER TO CONNECT
Haven, who was born in Guatemala but grew up in Cumberland, said on Instagram after Guerrero’s death that it felt like ICE agents were “targeting us.” She said it bothers her that some people on social media “give me a pass” because she can sing, while criticizing other immigrants, including those from South and Central America.
She was planning to sing at a John Lewis Day rally in Brunswick on Saturday, as part of a remembrance of Guerrero. She also plans to donate money from some of her upcoming shows to Project Relief Maine and Maine Solidarity Fund, two groups who work with immigrant families. She’s also agreed to perform at a tentative benefit concert in Biddeford, though the details of that are not yet final.
Haven thinks music and art have a unique power to connect people, to unite them behind a cause or idea.
“Music is a universal language. Even if you can’t understand what someone’s saying, you understand the sentiment and emotion behind it,” said Haven, 24. “As much turmoil as there is in America, and Maine, I think music can unite people. For me, it’s all about prioritizing love over hate.”
Natasha Mayers, an artist in Whitefield, said she first realized the power of art in protest after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s.
She was part of a group called Women in Black, who protested regularly in Augusta, holding signs with messages about the war. The signs didn’t generate much feedback and few people asked them what they were doing, Mayers said.
Then one day she showed up to a protest event, with 10 signs that had no words, just images. The change in people’s reactions was immediate, she said.
“Even policemen would stop and want to talk to us. It just opened up a dialogue between us and the people passing by,” said Mayers, 80, who organized the Artists’ Rapid Response Team. “People wanted to see the images and know what they meant. They didn’t put people off, the way words can.”
Mayer and other members of ARRT! have been making protest signs for nonprofits and other groups in Maine for years, and made many anti-ICE signs even before Monday’s shooting.
An offshoot of ARRT! called LumenARRT! projects images in public places and records them for social media. After Guerrero’s shooting, Anita Clearfield, an artist from Litchfield, planned with other artists to project an animated peace dove flying over Biddeford. On Thursday night, Clearfield drove past the city’s mill buildings and around downtown, with projection equipment in her car.
The video Clearfield and her collaborators made was posted to Instagram on Friday. It shows a blue dove flying over the city and through the streets, past the spot where Guerrero was shot, covered with candles and flowers. The words “This is blood” can be seen on the pavement. The caption underneath reads: “The dove flies in Biddeford. Mainers deserve to live and work in peace. ICE out!” It ends with the words: “RIP Johan Sebastián Guerrero.”
For Clearfield, making art that speaks to something as “horrifying” as Guerrero’s shooting helps her maintain her mental health.
“For my sanity, I have to do something to move that horrible feeling outside myself. I think so many people either have to be in denial about things like this or live with the pain,” said Clearfield, 74. “As an artist, it’s important to be able to do something that reminds people of our common humanity, that empathy and community matter.”
SEARCHING FOR HOPE
Sedler often paints murals with scenes of nature or the outdoors. She painted flowers on a wall at Maine Needs in Portland and a 5-story mural on the side of Mill Cove Apartments in South Portland, showing a scene inspired by the city’s Greenbelt Walkway.
But she says a lot of what’s going on the world, and the way people register their outrage or hate on social media, makes her feel hopeless. Guerrero’s shooting brought up those feelings again.
She took to social media, offering to paint a Biddeford mural, and then connected with Adams. Sedler is pregnant and said at least some of her motivation for wanting to paint the mural is her search for hope, not only for herself but also for the world she’s bringing a child into.
“If I’m to bring a human into the world, I feel compelled to do the best I can do to make it a better place for them,” said Sedler, 33, of Durham. “I want to be able to tell them I tried my best.”
Sedler and Adams said last week they hadn’t finalized a spot for the Biddeford mural, but hoped to paint it soon. Both said it would be something that specifically honors Guerrero.
Adams has done other murals with political or social justice themes.
In June, he finished a mural in Lewiston, painted with his wife, Rachel Gloria Adams, titled “Welcome Immigrants” and celebrating that city’s diversity. The words “Different Ships” and “Same Boat” float over multicolored designs on two sides of a downtown building.
Adams also helped create, with other artists, a mural in downtown Portland in 2020 memorializing George Floyd and other Black people killed by police officers.
Adams says he’s gotten angry threats in response to some of his public art, including the “No ICE” posters he made for local businesses. He’s had people try to post his address and other personal information online.
Because of that, he doesn’t want to reveal beforehand where the Biddeford mural will be or when he and Sedler will be working on it.
“It’s risky as hell,” Adams said. “I have a family and people who depend on me, so it’s not something I take lightly. “
Bob Wiegers, a folk musician who lives in Saco, says he has friends “from very far away” who are living in fear of ICE. After Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis in January, he wrote a song about the incident called “Ice and Snow.”
After Guerrero was shot, Wiegers went to a gathering in Mechanics Park in Biddeford and saw others grieving and angry. He had played that park a few nights earlier with the folk band Sparrow, so he started thinking about organizing a benefit concert to raise money for Guerrero’s family.
He has three other musical acts lined up so far to play the show, which will be July 30 at Sacred Profane Brewery in Biddeford.
Wiegers says he’s made plans with immigrant neighbors to help them if agents ever come from them. He says he’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe.
For Wiegers, 49, organizing the benefit was his way of answering the question: “What can I do?”
“I feel music can touch the heart and soul and mind in ways that other things can’t.”
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