The Avenue Concept (TAC) facilitated a new mural at One Ship Street in the Jewelry District, You Are My Sunshine by local muralist and printmaker Michael Ezzell.
For the 2024 edition of the wall, TAC and our partners wanted to honor the twenty-year anniversary of the first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S., which occurred in Massachusetts and California in January 2004 and offer the community a mural imbued with unbridled joy and exuberant color.
You Are My Sunshine features two mustached suns extending rays of light toward each other tenderly. An equal sign floating above their faces is surrounded in rays forming a loving heart; intertwining rays at the bottom of the composition “tie a knot” a nod, of course, to marriage. Ezzell pays homage to the transgender community with the light pink background and baby blue stars surrounding the pair of suns, a nod to the trans flag. The stars number 20, one for each year of the commemorated anniversary.
When asked what he hopes people take away from the piece, Ezzell noted “I think there’s a warmth and sensitivity and intimacy in the image that I’ve created in my mural, and I hope that people feel warmed by that whether they’re gay or whether they’re straight. I think there’s a universal ‘love each other’ message there. Even the title, You Are My Sunshine, is really nice because we do shine better together.”
Ezzell’s first collaboration with TAC was in 2020 for the rotating Tiny Bar storefront on Point Street, followed closely by an interior mural for Westway Club in the historic Turk’s Head Building in downtown Providence. In 2022, Ezzell worked in partnership with TAC, Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) and Community Care Alliance (CCA) to create Hope, Community, Dignity on their building in Woonsocket.
About The Avenue Concept: The Avenue Concept makes public art happen. We produce exceptional visual public art and experiences with artists and communities designed to inspire joy, dialogue, and inclusion. We do this by investing in permanent infrastructure, funding public art projects, documenting and promoting the work of artists, using art as a tool for education, and advocating for policies, processes and partnerships that develop sustainable avenues for public art. We envision vibrant public spaces where art is a catalyst to nurture connection, hope and belonging.
Founded in Providence, RI in 2012, The Avenue Concept is the state’s leading public art program. Since then it has installed or exhibited more than 250 works of public art, and invested $2 million in both artwork and infrastructure.
