A Pennsylvania-based muralist, so touched by what happened at Pulse nightclub, left his home to set up shop in The City Beautiful.

  • Muralist Michael Pilato moved to Orlando for passion project on Pulse
  • He has spent past 8 months interviewing Pulse survivors, friends
  • Mural will be unveiled at Pulse nightclub in June

“You’re going to think of love, compassion, unity," said Michael Pilato, staring at the colorful mural board in his upstairs studio in downtown Orlando. “I lost my daughter two years ago. I felt her pulling me toward Orlando.”

Pilato is working to finish a piece about the Pulse victims and those who most greatly impacted the community in the days after the shooting.

He has spent the past eight months interviewing survivors, friends and family members.

And with each careful paintbrush stroke, bringing memories to life.

The journey

Last year while working on another mural in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Pilato heard the news of the nightclub shooting. He carefully added the fountain at Lake Eola and 49 birds, soaring beneath a rainbow, into the scene on the side of a building there.

“It touched me in such a way I knew that I had to do something," he said.

Others felt the same way. Longtime friend Chimene Hurst dreamed of a way to help the Central Florida community heal. She thought of Pilato almost immediately.

“I sent him a message and said, 'Is there any way you would come to Orlando?' ” Hurst said.

Soon, Hurst became the associate director of the project and helped the artist set up shop in a small studio above a pizza shop on Colonial Drive.

“It’s very peaceful watching them paint," Hurst said. “We both have such passion for healing and art, and that’s how it all began.”

Beads of sweat pool on Pilato's upper lip as he grips the paintbrush.

“When I first came, it was 102 degrees, and I was a lot fatter," he said.

Pilato and his painting partner, Yuriy Karabash, set to work, painting 16 to 17 hours a day, pausing only to conduct interviews, listen to stories or take mental breaks.

Those who the artists perceive made the greatest impact in the days following Pulse appear on the tall mural boards: State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper, Somos Orlando's Nancy Rosado, among others. In the mural, shooting survivor Angel Colon sits beneath the man who saved him, Officer Omar Delgado. Commissioner Patty Sheehan tightly hugs victim Cory Connell's father.

“The part that I love the most are the stories and connections with families," Hurst said.

And after months of speaking with those who suffered so greatly, Pilato said they have become more than friends.

“The people that I’ve met here have become family," he said. “This is very healing for me, to be here and be with the families. I feel my daughter with me."

The vision

According to the artist, the mural — now nearly complete — will serve as the catalyst for an eventual 49 murals between Central Florida and Puerto Rico. Eventually, Pilato and Hurst hope to make the murals interactive and even build a school curriculum around the pieces to facilitate discussion.

Yet, there are still many unknowns for the artist, such as where the mural will find a permanent home. Never before shared with the public, he will unveil it in June at Pulse.

There's also a funding issue: Pilato, not commissioned to move to Orlando to paint, estimates he's spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money in the past few months on the project.

But he's undeterred, and hopes the project — so cathartic for him — brings healing to those who see it as well.

“It just comforts them and reminds them of how beautiful Orlando is and the love that came out of this," he said. “We paint a lot of positives from negatives, trying to uplift people in the hardest times in their lives."

For more information about the project, visit http://www.4953andbeyond.com/.