SEATTLE — Nearly four months after a man took a sledgehammer to the windows of the Wing Luke Museum, shouting racist hate, the museum continues to heal from the trauma.
The shattered windows have since been covered up with plywood. The plywood serves as a constant reminder of that hateful attack in Canton Alley at the heart of the Chinatown-International District, or the CID.
Last week, artists were working on a solution to that problem.
"It also just feels strong, like a big bird across the whole thing," artist Shea Takabayashi Dailey said. Dailey and his co-artist Sami were painting a regal pheasant inside the museum on another set of plywood. The plan is to move the painted boards to the outside when complete, so a mural would be in place of just plain boards.
The two artists said their deep connections to the CID compelled them to do something for the grieving community.
"This painting to me is a symbol to always remember what we're saying yes to when we say no to racism," Dailey said.
"It's like not repressing those emotions for the community or for ourselves, it's a way of processing it, in a clearer way, and expressing it as a form of art," Sami added.
On September 14th, while people mingled inside the Wing Luke museum, surveillance video captured a man outside the building using a sledgehammer to smash the windows. He was shouting anti-Asian hate statements.
The violent rant caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage to this historic building. It also caused immeasurable emotional damage to the folks who were inside the museum when the attack happened.
"I think this is the home of so many stories and so many generations and it just felt like not only attack on a building, a personal attack and an attack on an entire race," an employee at the Wing Luke Museum said last month.
Wing Luke's executive director Joel Barraquiel Tan said recovery takes time.
"We're not naïve to the fact that this is happening more and more in the world, but we're not going to stop celebrating ourselves and our joy," Tan said. "I think that is why all of the phases towards the repair will be acknowledged."
The artists said they hoped that a brightly painted bird would serve as a bold sign to the community that healing is a work in progress.
"At this point it's just moving through it, moving past it, building from it, and not letting it stop anybody from feeling like life is okay, that safety is here," Sami said.
Tan added that he hopes people will also know that the CID is stronger when people gather.
"We believe that that is the most effective strategy for public safety, it's us," Tan said. "All together, more often, on a regular basis. So with that, the murals, among many other things brings you back home to the Chinatown-International district."
The mural is located on Canton Alley that runs next to the Wing Luke Museum.