A new mural in Northbrook is heavy on nature, with flowers, trees, a hummingbird, a cardinal, a red-tailed hawk, a bee, a caterpillar and a butterfly to give a sense of outdoor beauty.
And, this being Northbrook, there’s also a water tower emblazoned with the words: “Save Ferris.”
The father-and-son artists who painted it, Terry Luc and Gerry Luc, point to a real water tower not far away that, now blank, could be seen bearing those words in the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” The classic comedy, set in the north suburbs, was written and directed by John Hughes, who grew up in Northbrook and died in 2009.
“It’s definitely a really cool part of Northbrook history,” says the younger Luc, 24. “I don’t think people fully understand the creativity that comes out of the Chicago area.”
His father, 64, says the mural piece was meant to be “joyful.”
Kathryn Ciesla, Northbrook’s village president, suggested doing a mural, having seen them elsewhere and thinking “art can evoke in a really subtle way really great emotions” and “generate some community pride.”
Terry Luc says Ciesla “contacted me in late September about doing the mural and asked me if I could get it done before the end of the year. I knew I would need to create a design that everyone would love and that could get approved by the art commission and the village very easily and very quickly so that we could start as soon as possible and finish before the weather turned wintry.”
He settled on the four seasons: “A longtime Northbrook resident, I really appreciate living through the seasons here.
“With our parks, forest preserves and tree-lined trees, experiencing the changing seasons is a beautiful thing. As locals or flatlanders, we don’t really appreciate the beauty of our part of the country, much less Northbrook itself. We don’t have mountains or oceans, so many people think it is boring here. In fact, it is a beautiful place to live. And I hoped that a mural such as this would remind people of the beauty we have right here at home.
“We also have more wildlife than we realize, including amazing birds. I wanted to have one bird to go with each season.”
Painted on the brick exterior of a florist shop, it’s on Shermer Road across from the Metra tracks.
Terry Luc says “the idea is to subtly make people think about the beauty of the birds and other wild things that we live with all around us.”
Terry Luc, who usually works on canvas, says he got his son involved because “Gerry is an amazing artist. Now, while I have created many large-scale, acrylic paintings, I had never done an outdoor mural. Gerry, however, recently painted a large outdoor mural downstate in Champaign at the bar Kams that featured caricatures of various U. of I. alums.
“Having him work on this project with me was a dream come true. And although I came up with the original design, Gerry really took the lead on the project.”
Gerry Luc says he wanted to include images he thought kids might relate to, like the caterpillar, and also wanted the style of the piece to draw in part from and reflect Chicago street art, with a “cartoonish balloon feel to it.”
