Art honor society creates banner rejecting PAL hate crime

A few months ago, a hate crime took place at the Port Washington PAL softball field.

The Police Athletic League building was broken into and vandalised.  There were swastikas spray-painted all over the building on walls, athletic equipment, and even projects made by children.  The crime left the community in shock and fear.

  However, the building was not spray-painted for long.  The Port Washington community stood up to this anti-Semitic act, most recently with the creation of the PAL Banner by the art honor society.  This piece of artwork was created to celebrate our differences and bring us together.

“The process of creating the banner was definitely a learning curve.  Since we were not able to all work on it in person, we decided on making it a collaborative digital and traditional piece of artwork,” said junior Sam Nachimson. 

The first step was organizing and planning out the banner, which included the color palette and design. Students submitted pieces of artwork to help spark ideas for the banner.  From the submissions, the team chose the best ideas which were later imprinted on the final product of the banner.

  After a general plan was made, the students then split up to work on different jobs, such as translating the text, or working on the text’s position and design.  This graphic design portion of the banner was crucial to the final product.  Other students were tasked with drawing and creating the figures on the banner.  These images were scanned by the artists and isolated so they could be added to the file.  One of the last jobs that students participated in was designing the athletic equipment in the background.   By working together, these students showed their solidarity against the hate that was inflicted on our community.

             “I’m disappointed and disgusted by the cruel acts of vandalism at PAL.  This should be a safe space where everyone is accepted and able to play.  Our goal for the project is to respond to hate with unity.  That’s why we decided to focus on honoring athletes who faced adversity and include ‘Everyone is Welcome to Play Here.’ As a community we want to be able to grow stronger through this issue,” said Nachimson.

     The next step of the creation of the PAL banner was adding the background that made the figures, text, and equipment pop out.  Finally, the last step was simply editing and making sure that everything was in its correct place.  

“It’s so nice to see students unify the community after what happened.  It is very important that we stick together and are kind to each other now more than ever!  The PAL banner was a great way to do this,” said sophomore Talia Sinclair.