The unexpected way ‘a source of joy’ wound up as the model for a giant uptown mural

Early one morning last summer, Dionna Bright was lying in bed scrolling through Twitter when she saw a photo of an enormous mural in uptown with a familiar face staring back at her — her own.

“I was like, ‘Wait, what? That’s me,’ ” the 27-year-old Charlotte photographer said, laughing.

Fellow local artist and friend Kalin Devone had posted images of progress on her latest project: a more than 70-foot-tall mural on the side of a building near the Charlotte Convention Center.

“Kalin had asked me for a few photos, but I didn’t think much of it,” Bright said in a recent interview with The Charlotte Observer. “I just assumed it was a fellow artist working on a project, and I didn’t ask any questions.”

The mural, “Where Inspiration and Strength Blooms,” is painted on the Duke Energy building, on E. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, between Brevard and College streets.

Among the tallest murals in the city, it depicts Bright in a lime-green hoodie (Bright’s favorite color is green), surrounded by greenery and a crown of figs. Her eyes sparkle.

Devone described her inspiration in a video about the project: “When I thought about this piece, I wanted someone who brings me light and is a source of joy,” the artist said. “My friend Dionna is always so positive and energetic, and I was thinking that this area needs that.”

Proud of Black representation

Devone collaborated with two other local female artists, Owl and Sam Guzzie, on the mural inspired by Bright’s strength and authenticity. Due to health issues, the project also was Guzzie’s final mural.

Devone and Bright recently held a photo shoot to update Devone’s headshots.

“Dionna really made me feel like my most beautiful best self when I was at my lowest,” Devone said on Twitter. “She took photos of me that really made me fall in love with myself again.”

On an Instagram post, Bright, also in a lime-green shirt, smiles big in front of the mural, her chin up to the sky, arms outstretched. “I never imagined something like this for myself. I never grew up seeing Black people represented in this way,” she wrote.

“As I bounced around the street taking photos… of the mural, I observed people stopping and staring. I heard people comment ‘beautiful.’ I saw little Black girls looking up and smiling. AT MY FACE.

“Women, Black women, blackness, Black artists, pursuing passions, engaging talents and skills, impacting one another, impacting community. What (these artists) have done here is huge. Blackness, the essence of it, deserves to be seen,” Bright wrote.

“We deserve this dream, this reality. We deserve to be here.”

Capturing fleeting moments

Bright always loved capturing moments, even as a young girl in the rural outskirts of Pittsboro.

“I grew up in the deep country, around nature and on a lot of land,” she said. “My sister was my main companion, and I would take fun pictures of her and of the sky. Those fun and joyous moments always felt fleeting.”

With a camera, Bright could preserve that joy.

In 2013, she moved to Charlotte to attend UNC Charlotte, where she met Devone and earned a sociology degree.

“It plays very well into my life, which then translates into my business and the way that I interact with people,” she said of her major. “I’m intuitive and understand the people around me.”

While in college, Bright started a blog.

“I struggled with depression, and blogging was my outlet, a way to express what I was going through and how I was feeling,” she said. “I enjoyed the forum, where people would read it and engage with me.”

In 2017, with the encouragement of a former partner, she started her photography business, part-time, mostly focusing on weddings and portrait work. That included maternity shoots, graduation photos and birthday parties.

“I love one-on-one shoots the most, connecting with one person, at max, two,” she said.

She’s also been shooting musician portraits for album covers lately. “I’m open, though,” she said. “If I’m out hiking, I’m getting wildlife and nature.”

Before making the leap to full-time work as a professional photographer in February, Bright was a data analyst for an energy sector nonprofit.

“I wasn’t feeding myself with things that I loved to do,” she said. “I knew that I loved photography and capturing moments and being part of capturing those moments in others’ lives.”

She also enjoys self-portrait work.

“It allows me to connect with myself and check in with where I am and express my daydreams,” Bright said.

Next month, Bright plans to join Dammit Wesley and other artists for the Hunniddollar Art Fair, an event in Camp North End from Dec. 8-10 featuring local art work for $100.

Her favorite mural interaction

The uptown mural provided Bright with a lot of interactions, but one stood out: when her mother saw it for the first time.

“My mom doesn’t cry,” Bright said. “But she started to cry. We weren’t always very close, but she’s my best friend now. Being able to hear my mom say that she’s proud of me made me feel full and whole.”

Bright also noted that Devone didn’t paint her smiling.

“I’m always smiling, but I love that she didn’t show my cheese and decided on a more assured look,” Bright said. “She wanted it to come across as soft and powerful.”

Even though the mural is of her, Bright says she, too, finds inspiration in it.

“It’s a story of friendship and an expression of love,” she said. “On a bad day, I can go to that mural and be inspired and see how that impact lives on.”

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This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 5:43 AM with the headline "The unexpected way ‘a source of joy’ wound up as the model for a giant uptown mural."