Local artist Pigeon — a.k.a. Orson Horchler — is best known for the wheat pasted drawings that for the past two years he’s been putting up in different corners of downtown Bangor. Mike Ogilvie, also a Bangor resident, has for the past few years been shooting and editing videos documenting life in Bangor — most notably his videos of the Bangor Zombie Walk and his “Harlem Shake” video last winter.
Last Saturday, Pigeon took to downtown Bangor again, this time to create a temporary charcoal mural dedicated to the memory and legacy of recently-deceased South African leader Nelson Mandela. On a retaining wall on Franklin Street outside Penobscot County Jail Horchler drew a portrait of Mandela sent “from Bangor to Cape Town” coupled with a quote that read, “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it’s an act of justice.”
“[I wanted to] honor Mandela’s passing and bring his global message about poverty home to Maine,” said Horchler.
Ogilvie was on hand to document the process, a YouTube video of which was put up online Thursday afternoon.
Horchler was issued a summons by the Bangor Police Department for criminal mischief for his charcoal drawing, though the summoning officer said that if he washed the artwork off by 4 p.m. that day he’d dismiss the summons. He washed the charcoal off at 3:30 p.m.