CNN 2010-06-18

Why would a mural showing kids smiling and having fun make some people so angry? Would you believe it has to do with the color of their skin. This is a mural at Miller 1 Valley Elementary School in Prescott, Arizona. School officials told the artist to lighten the skin tones of two of their minority students, the children on it but they later backed off.

This comes while race relations are under a microscope in Arizona, which begins enforcing its new immigration law next month. Pamela Smith and R.E. Wall are the artists who painted the mural. They join us now from Phoenix 2, Arizona, live. Thanks for joining us. I love your hats. Before we get to this controversy 3, what are the hats for?

Well, the hats are what we consider uniform for the mural mice in Prescott. The sign of, it's a symbol of pride and service to our community.

OK. OK. So, R.E. just before I thought people would wonder at home, why you're wearing those. Let's get to this controversy now. I want to be specific about this, about who asked you to lighten the skin tones of the children on this mural? Who did it, Pam?

Well, there was a meeting between some of the teachers because they had been under pressure from people in the community, and that's where the first command came from to lighten the skin tone.

So, OK, the first command came from to lighten the skin tone from them. But what about who are these models? Where did you pick the models from for the mural?

The models were actually children from the school. They had contests to see who would win and who would be chosen to pose for us.

R.E., when you found out about it, what was your response? I mean you, they later backed off but did you say I'm not gonna do it, were you in the process of doing it, did you ever consider it?

No, I never seriously considered it. As an artist, myself and Pamela, I had the picture fully 4 under control. We were trying to depict 5 the child exactly as he was in the photograph, and to have somebody tell you to lighten up the skin tone, it really didn't go over very well with either me or Pam. And so it was my decision to step away from it for a few days and reconsider it.

What was the explanation behind them, wanting to lighten the skin?

There are several explanations around it, mostly it was couched in the aesthetic 6 value of the picture, whether or not it could be a better picture by having them come into the light. But we knew by the experience we were having with the diversity issue and the racism 7 that was coming from the city council members, radio show and the audience out in the intersection 8, that it was the center, and source of it was concerned about the right-looking kids on that wall.

So do you think it was based, you think it was racism, R.E.?

Oh, yeah, I do. I do. Not…

Pam?

I absolutely do. There were several times when I was painting outside with the little ones, when motorists would drive by and yell racial slurs 9 out the windows and it really upset the children. What's going on there?

It's hard to explain, you know. It didn't make a lot of sense to us. For neither one of us are racists people, and you know, it's really hard to explain. Those children are real children. Those are real kids that go to that school, not contrived 10 from somewhere else. They have feelings. They have been affected 11 by this and it's really a shame that they should have played that card unfortunately.

So then R.E., why did they eventually back off?

They initially 12 backed off because I think that they underestimated the support we had in our community. And had we not had that support at all, I'm pretty sure that they would have had us change it.