Faces of Novato

The town of Novato, Calif., was long known to outsiders as a White, wealthy community nestled in the hills above San Francisco Bay.

Nonresidents may have missed the changes that communities like Novato have experienced in recent years — the shift from rural to suburban economy, increasing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, the pain of intolerance and hate crime.

Novato residents aren’t particularly concerned about what outsiders think, but they care deeply about how social change is affecting their community. Civic leaders have spent considerable time and energy coming up with interesting ways to address the tensions of transition. One recent effort shows just how creative such efforts can be.

Along Novato's main street, the people are larger than life. Teachers and students, police officers, firefighters, store keepers and other citizens of every age and hue gaze out from giant photographic banners suspended from the light posts. The images are part of Faces of Novato, a community art project created and executed by Bay Area photographer Nita Winter.

"Visuals are a powerful medium. By virtue of display, they tell the truth of who we are," said Annan Paterson, school psychologist and member of Novato’s Multicultural Oversight Committee (MOC), the organization that helped bring Winter’s talents to Novato last year. Winter was already well known for her Faces of Marin City, a similar public photography project aimed at breaking down stereotypes within the predominantly Black town.

"When I first saw the banners in Marin City, the faces, the colors, the positive portrayal of diversity – it was clear that the photos captured the wonderful diversity of the city," Paterson said. "It really changed my perception of Marin City."

It was clear to Paterson that the Faces project was a perfect fit for Novato, a town that had suffered hate crimes in its schools in 1998 and one against a resident in 1995. Such crimes are typical growing pains of a community with rural history that is now becoming more citified, Paterson says.

Today, rural occupations make up less than one percent of the jobs held in Novato. MOC members quickly rallied around the Faces of Novato concept, and raised funds to get the project going.

From February to June of last year, Winter enlisted 500 residents – 350 of whom were children – to create a public exhibit of more than 100 photographs of local townspeople. The images highlight the diverse cultural and social makeup of Novato's individuals and families. The images are now on display on 8-ft banners and poster-sized prints throughout the local shopping areas and school district offices.

"The entire community of Novato and those beyond who experience this exhibit will be exposed to a powerful message of acceptance, understanding and appreciation of a variety of cultural and individual beliefs and lifestyles," Winter said.

Schools played an integral role in the project, providing studio space, inviting parents, families and children to shoots and displaying poster-sized prints of images. The city council also opened its chamber doors to serve as a studio.

"It’s not just the product but the process of her art. Nita goes into the community and involves residents in a creative and uplifting way," said Dr. Tom Peters, president and chief executive officer of the Marin Community Foundation, one of the largest donors to the Faces series.

"I was just as interested in funding Nita’s waiting rooms as her studio!" joked Peters. "People waiting to get their pictures taken struck up some remarkable conversations and realized who their neighbors were. It led to some fascinating small world stories of familial or business connections that people did not know before."

The Foundation funded about $24,000 of the $45,000 it took to complete the Novato project. The remaining funds were donated from the Institute for Noetic Sciences ($10,000), local businesses, clubs and the city of Novato.

"What was so important about the Faces of Novato was that it reflected, verified and celebrated diversity in the community. That is well worth supporting," Peters said.

"I tell my officers not to ticket folks driving too slow, zig-zagging or craning their necks out of their cars trying to see the photos," laughed Police Chief Brian Brady.

Chief Brady serves on the MOC and played a key role in getting the project off the ground. "Everybody likes the banners," he said. "I’ve got two of my captains and a police dog on some of them."

"The banners have been up for more than a year – and that speaks volumes," Paterson said. "They are a source of pride within the community."

The community is so proud of the banners, in fact, they used them during Novato’s Independence Day parade last year. It was a coming out party of sorts; the banners had just gone up two weeks before and had to be taken down from the light posts during the holiday to make room for American flags.

So, instead of letting them lie useless, the MOC used them for its float, and people featured in the banners paraded themselves around the town center.

"Novato’s Fourth of July parade wasn’t merely a celebration of independence, it was a celebration of diversity," Winter said. "It was great fun to be able to parade around with larger than life images of people in the community."

Since the completion of Faces of Novato in July 2001, Winter launched her third Faces project in June 2002, Faces of Canal, showcasing a predominantly Latino district in San Rafael, another Bay Area town.

With Winter’s help, hopefully more communities like Marin City, Novato and Canal will see themselves unlike outsiders do, they will see themselves larger than life.