UP AGAINST THE WALL

The mural consists of a women's wall and a men's wall, with 84 faces chronologically arranged on each. The artist digitally reconstructed and then enlarged original photographs of each face. The photos were then recomposed on the black, white and gray tiles that make up the mural. By the spring of 1991, when the 7,880 square feet of tile had been installed, city officials found another way to spend the $9,000 Revelle had allotted for the touch-screen computer key.

"They said that I hadn't put epoxy in the tile grout to make it graffiti-proof," she recalls. "To do that, they just happened to need $9,000."

Now that the much-needed key to the mural is finally being prepared, the controversy could bubble up again. But Denver's current public-art coordinator, Greg Esser, insists that Revelle is not being left out of the team that is creating the key.

The plan is for her to contribute her research to local historian Tom Noel, who will write the text for the new key with the help of students at CU-Denver. Revelle also has been asked to contribute ideas about the graphic design of the key to an artist from the Denver Planning Office who will be handling that part of the project. According to Esser, Revelle has been "very cooperative."

What happened to the originally planned computer touch screen? Esser says such an interactive computer key would now cost between $20,000 and $30,000, and for that reason, "it was never really an option. Her original concept is just not feasible given what our budget is."

Revelle agrees that the city probably wouldn't have enough money to hire her to do the key as she had intended it. Although she will turn over her records to Noel, she says, "The thing that is sad to me is that the biographies are now going to be reduced to one or two lines. That was never my idea."

Noel insists that when he and his students work on the key, they have no intention of diverting from Revelle's original political sentiment. "I'm certainly not in it to revise what she did," he says.

Two glass cases have already been installed just inside the center's Welton Street entrance. Later this spring, the key identifying the people in the mural will be displayed inside those cases.

"I regularly get phone calls from people who want to know about the faces on the wall," Esser says.

Revelle still feels the impact of working on the project. "You get disabused of your idealistic views working in public art," she says. "You have to learn to be a fighter and learn to find your voice.

"At first I was afraid of the mayor's aides and all those architects. They were real smooth-talking and considerate. But I learned that they were on a different side. In the end, I had to go out fighting.