Ebtehal Badawi attends a school event with a group of student painters. (Photo by Dominique Murray)

By Maria Sciullo, Pittsburgh Tomorrow

Ebtehal Badawi has run up against her share of metaphorical walls, but she’s always searching for the real thing, paintbrush in hand.

The creator and executive director of Pittsburgh’s Building Bridges Day believes in the power of art to help strangers become friends. Her initiative, Building Bridges, brings together children, adults and groups to help color her vision.

Most of the time, this involves dozens – sometimes hundreds – of people to lend a brushstroke or two of acrylic paint to the posters she sketches all over town. She often asks them, what are you doing to help build bridges?

Badawi has also created a few large-scale and colorful murals on walls, including Salem’s Market and Grill in the Hill District as well as Arsenal Middle School.

Also a photographer and writer, Badawi appears at universities, grade schools, libraries, and public events. By her estimate, almost 5,000 people have lent a hand, literally, in adding depth of hue to the image of a golden bridge spanning fists of various skin tones and decorated with symbols of religions of the world.

A lot of places say no to her project, but a lot say yes. And she keeps on going. “I’d be lying if I said it was easy,” she says, softening the statement with a big smile.

“It really got me out of my comfort zone. But you decide ‘which is bigger, my vision or my fear,’” says Badawi, who lives with her husband and two children in Pleasant Hills.

Badawi at a Building Bridges event with a group that helped paint the work shown here. (Photo by Dominique Murray)

The second Building Bridges Day — an initiative promoting diversity and unity through art – took place Aug. 3. Badawi said she expected around 2,000 people to show for music, food and art vendors and activities. Emmy Award-winning rapper Frzy, a Pittsburgh native, was scheduled to perform.

Sponsors included 1Hood Media, the Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Penguins, the Heinz Endowments, Salem’s Market and Grill, the OWEW Corporation and the embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in DC.

Growing up in Saudi Arabia, Badawi fell in love with the idea of becoming an artist. After taking an art workshop in fifth grade, she wrote a secret note to herself that promised: “When I grow up, I will go to art school.”

Her family took a more pragmatic view, so she got a degree in biology at King Abdul-Aziz University.

In 2006, the family came to the U.S. so she could pursue a master’s degree in industrial hygiene. “Engineering, chemistry, physics, all these fun things,” she adds with a laugh.

After struggling to find a part-time job in her field, Badawi says she began “this self-loving journey.” She took a class that “completely shifted my mindset” and began looking for the positives in life.

Her philosophy was tested in 2018, when someone on her son’s Pleasant Hills Middle School hockey team made a racist remark to him.

In response, she sketched a small design – the Build Bridges prototype of a gold bridge with raised fists of various skin shades– and asked if she could hang it at the school. She could. The effect would help others.

One day, a friend’s son had a panic attack in the school cafeteria. He calmed himself, breathing through it and later his mom told Badawi that seeing her poster helped him. Not long after, she says, she heard about a video going around of a fight that injured a Muslim girl—a Syrian refugee—at Chartiers Valley High School. The incident sparked a desire to continue her outreach.

Badawi (center) assists Riverhound players as they paint at a recent event. (Photo by Dominique Murray)

Getting exposure for the Build Bridges initiative has meant stepping outside her comfort zone time and again. Like the time she heard actor Jason Momoa would be in town to shoot “Sweet Girl” in 2020.

Hoping to offer a paint brush to the star, Badawi and her daughter tried out as extras. Mom made the cut and can be seen for a few brief seconds (“I’m the only one wearing a scarf”) but wasn’t able to get close to the talent.

She did, however, talk up the stylists, makeup artists and other members of the crew, asking them to spread the word.

Another time, she went to the Professional Women’s Hockey League game between Toronto and Montreal in Pittsburgh. She hoped to have players participate in the project, which she would share afterwards on social media.

At the glass afterwards, Toronto Star Natalie Spooner took up the brush with one hand while still wearing her glove on the other.

The many images on Badawi’s phone are a testament to her efforts. There’s one of her finishing the Pittsburgh Marathon, serving as her own parade as she waves the scarf with the Building Bridges image along the route.

“My daughter laughed at me and said ‘Mommy, you’re like your own country. The country of Building Bridges.’”

The Building Bridges painting features fists of various colors raised in unity with faith themes above them. (Photo by Dominique Murray)

“I told her I want to bring everyone together and that’s why I keep carrying that flag whenever I run.” The artist has not only run two marathons but has also completed Olympic-distance triathlons.

Pulling up another photo featuring a group of school children, she says, “These are kindergarteners. I ask them: ‘How do we build bridges?’

In a TEDx talk in 2022, Badawi says one child said he is kind and gives hugs.

“Sharing how they do it, it just keeps going – kids sharing how they build bridges. It’s been a beautiful journey through the years.”

With smaller, sky-blue canvases in at least 50 locations around the Pittsburgh area, Badawi has hopes of using more art to bring more people together. She’s always still looking for blank walls. “I go to gas stations and ask,” she says.

“It always goes back to the ‘why.’ Why am I doing this and yes, I am doing this to bring people together. My son shared with me ‘Mommy, keep doing your art. I think it helps people’.”

(Maria Sciullo can be reached at mariasciullo2440@gmail.com) 

This story is part of The New Americans, a project of Pittsburgh Tomorrow, which seeks to reverse population loss through revitalization. See more stories here.