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Gelila Mesfin, an Ethiopian art student in New York, had long admired Michelle Obama her grace, her stoicism, and perhaps more than anything, her influence as a role model for black women.

So last year, as a tribute to the first lady, Mesfin drew a digital portrait depicting Obama in a gold and green Egyptian headdress. She uploaded the image to her Instagram account with the caption, Forever Queen.

That was in November, just before the 2016 election.

On Friday, more than five months later, an almost identical version of Mesfins work showed up as a mural on a building on Chicagos South Side, just blocks from where Obama grew up.

No one had contacted Mesfin about the mural. Nor had anyone credited her.

That might not have been a problem for the 24-year-old, who said she said she was initially flattered that a stranger hundreds of miles away had turned her image into a piece of public art.

But the person who painted the mural, artist and urban planner Chris Devins, appeared to have profited from the project, raising nearly $12,000 on a GoFundMe page. He also suggested to local media the depiction of Obama was his idea.

I wanted to present her as what I think she is, so shes clothed as an Egyptian queen, Devins told DNAinfo on Friday. I thought that was appropriate.

Devinss mural had only been up for a matter of hours when word got back to Mesfin. Sheobjected to the use of her work without permission in a widely circulated Instagram post that triggered a wave of outrage online, sayingshe felt like Devins stole her piece.

I was very disheartened when he did that, Mesfin told The Washington Post. Theres a common code among all artists that you can get inspired by someones work but you have to pay homage and you have to give credit for it.

Now, Mesfin and Devins said theyre negotiating a resolution to the dispute. The details are confidential, they said, but Mesfin told The Post she has sought help from an attorney.

Devins said he never intended to take credit for Mesfins creation, which itself was based off a portrait in theNew York Timesby photographer Collier Schorr. Mesfin credited Schorrs work on her Instagram post.

In an interview with The Post, Devins said he has been painting murals around Chicago for more than two years. Most of them depict well known black figures who are connected to the city in some way, among them Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole. For the most part, he said, he bases the murals on found images and public domain pictures he finds in the Library of Congress or Wikimedia Commons.

Devins said he makes little to no money off the installations, which he said he paints to reaffirm the identity of the surrounding community.

This is a free service that I do as a benefit for Chicago youth as a counter to the if it bleeds it leads portrayal of Chicagos South Side, he said.

In November, Devins started a GoFundMe seeking to raise at least $5,000 to paint a mural of the first lady on Bouchet Elementary, which Obama attended as a youth.

The fundraising page showed a black and white portrait of Obama with folded arms, nothing like Mesfins rendering.

But after raising $11,785, it was Mesfins workthat wound up on a wall not on the school, but a beige brick apartment building nearby.

Devins said he came across Mesfins drawing on the sharing site Pinterest and was unable to track down the artist. He explained his decision to use the image without permission in an analogy, saying he was creating a remix of a piece of art in the way that a DJ remixes songs.

All of the money, he said, went to the cost of painting the mural.

I didnt find out until she complained online that it was her image, Devins said. Thats why I didnt give her any credit.

After receiving backlash on social media, Devins apologized to Mesfin and issued multiple statements saying the work was hers. It did little to quell the anger among some users, who accused Devins, who is black, of racism, sexism and outright theft for using a young black womans art for his own purposes.

Though he was apologetic,Devins said he resented that he was accused of being mannish.

I moved ahead. I consider it to be collaboration after the fact, he told The Post. He speculated that Mesfin may have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars of free publicity from the attentiongenerated by the dispute.

Mesfin had a different take. For one, she told The Post, she makes no money off her art, nor does she seek to. Her Instagram feed is full ofimages like the Obama portrait,showing black female icons Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Beyonc in brightly colored African garb thatMesfin has drawn onto existing photographs. They are not for sale.

Her depiction of Obama was inspired in part by her love of Egyptian culture. The idea of first lady in a headdress popped into her head as soon as she came across the Collier Schorr portrait, which ran in the New York Times in October, she said.Colliers studio didnt immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Mesfin said the goal of much of her art isto show the rich heritage of black women by portraying them in a beautiful light. When she uses another photographers work, she said, she goes out of her way to give credit.

Its just showing appreciation, she said. If youre going to do something like this, its a common courtesy.

Mesfin has called on her followers not to insult Devins while the two of them work out a resolution.

I understand why he did it. At the same time, I was just surprised, she said. It would have been fine if he had just said that he got it from me.

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'Remix' or plagiarism? Artists battle over a Chicago mural of Michelle Obama. - Washington Post

Former President Obama sees his post-presidency role as a guide for future generations of political leaders, he said Monday during his first remarks since leaving office.

At the University of Chicago, Obama said he believes young people are going to be able to solve problems in the world that he wasn't able to tackle as president.

"The single most important thing I can do is to help, in any way I can, the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and take their own crack at changing the world," Obama said, "because the one thing that I'm absolutely convinced of is, yes, we confront a whole bunch of challenges ... they're serious, they're daunting, but they're not insolvable."

Obama spoke for a short period at the university before turning it over to a panel discussion. The focus of Obama's appearance was to discuss civic engagement and community organizing.

Obama spent much of his opening remarks talking about his history in Chicago and what it meant to him to be a community organizer. He said the experiences that shaped his philosophies for the presidency all took place in Chicago.

"This community gave me a lot more than I was able to give in return, because this community taught me that ordinary people when working together can do extraordinary things," he said.

View post:
Obama: The 'most important thing I can do' is prepare next generation of leaders - Washington Examiner

Former President Barack Obama on Monday gave his first public address since leaving office, moderating a panel with young people on community engagement while dancing around the turmoil surrounding his White House successor.

"So, uh, what's been going on while I've been gone?" Obama deadpanned at the beginning of his opening remarks at the University of Chicago.

The former president's re-emergence on the public scene comes just before President Trump's 100-day mark on Saturday. Since leaving office, Obama has taken an extended vacation with former first lady Michelle, attended Broadway performances and began working on his memoirs.

But in moderating the panel of six young civic leaders in the Chicago area, Obama underscored that it's conversations like these he hopes to facilitate in his next act.

"I'm spending a lot of time thinking about what is the most important thing I can do for my next job," Obama said, adding: "The single most important thing I can do is to help in any way I can to prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and to take their own crack at changing the world."

While his return to the public eye wasn't overtly political in nature or in tone, he did bemoan the divisions in the country. He admitted that his famed comment that there were "not red states and blue states" made during his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address was "aspirational" but one he still believes in.

He also reflected on the time he spent in Chicago as a community organizer before going to law school, later returning to the University of Chicago to teach constitutional law before he launched his political career.

"I am the first to acknowledge that I did not set the world on fire" with his work as community organizer, Obama laughed.

But, he continued, the experience he had working for change in the community "taught me that ordinary people, when working together, can do extraordinary things. This community taught me that everybody has a story to tell that is important," and that despite divisions, people have "common hopes and dreams, common aspirations, common values."

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Obama Returns To Public Stage, Encouraging Next Generation To 'Take Up The Baton' - KUOW News and Information

Former President Barack Obama on Monday partly blamed the nation's splintered politics on a media structure that lets people only listen to or read media outlets they agree with, which prevents them from hearing the other side.

"Because of changes in the media, we now have a situation in which everybody is listening to people who already agree with them, and are further and further reinforcing their own realities to the neglect of the common reality that allows us to have a healthy debate, and then try to find common ground and actually move solutions forward," Obama said in his first set of remarks since he left the White House in January.

Obama said other problems include the gerrymandering, money in politics and the control over the government by special interests.

He also seemed to acknowledge that he did less to bring people together than he had hoped.

"When I said in 2004 that there were no red states or blue states, there are the United States of America, that was an aspirational comment," he said.

Continued here:
Obama slams media that lets people reinforce 'their own realities' - Washington Examiner

Former President Barack Obama made his first public remarks since leaving office, speaking to young people at the University of Chicago.

Obama encouraged young people to get involved, not to become "cynical" and give up on the political process.

He said those negative attitudes toward politics are having a "pernicious" effect, leading to "some of the lowest voting rates of any advanced democracy."

"[That] translates into a further gap between who's governing us and what we believe," he said, not mentioning President Trump specifically.

He emphasized that only young people can solve that problem, saying he wants to focus on "knocking down barriers" which prevent civic engagement.

"If that happens, I think we're gonna be just fine," said Obama.

The 44th president also called out "changes in the media," which he argued are preventing Americans from working together to find common ground and solve problems.

"Everybody's listening to people who already agree with them, further and further reinforcing their own realities to the neglect of a common reality," he said.

He looked back on his 2004 comment in which he said there aren't red or blue states, "only the United States."

Obama said that was an "aspirational" statement, but one that he still believes in, explaining that people tend to have a lot more in common when they speak to each other one-on-one.

In an interview last week, his longtime adviser Valerie Jarrett said that Obama was looking forward to getting involved again.

Jarrett said Obama was eager to get back to his community organizer roots and to focus on helping the Democratic Party identify future leaders.

Watch the remarks above.

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Original post:
Obama Speaks in Chicago: 'There's a Gap Between Who's Governing Us and What We Believe' - Fox News Insider