From Haring to Gran Fury: The Inspiration Behind a Cover That Reminds Us Pride Is Protest

How artist Eddie Chaffer blends activism, identity and legacy in a bold call to action

BTL's cover "Still Acting Up" was inspired by Black and brown activists who have long led the fight for LGBTQ+ liberation. (Right) Muralist and Son Visual Co. owner Eddie Chaffer, the artist who designed BTL's 2025 Pride cover. Courtesy photo

Chris Azzopardi

Published: June 4, 2025 | Last Updated: June 4, 2025

Pride Source's Between The Lines, the longest-running LGBTQ+ print publication in Michigan, is incredibly proud to feature cover art for our June 5 issue by Son Visual Co., the studio of Eddie Chaffer, a Grand Rapids-based muralist whose vibrant, community-rooted work lives at the intersection of storytelling, identity and resistance. Their striking pieces — particularly visible on Michigan’s west side — use community-centered imagery to inspire dialogue and advocate for change. One recent example is a mural created for the Bear Lake Community Mural Wall, located on the backside of Motel Bear Lake.

For this issue — our biggest of the year — we knew we needed a cover that did more than celebrate Pride Month. Eddie responded with a striking image that channels the urgency of early Pride movements, drawing from the bold visual language of Keith Haring, Gran Fury and ACT UP! At a time when queer and trans communities are under renewed attack, the cover challenges viewers to confront our present reality while reflecting on the legacy of protest and the power of resistance.

The symbolism runs deep: the snake, an allusion to the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag now associated with white supremacist groups, speaks to the threat of fascism; the raised hand — both a symbol to stop and a reference to Michigan’s lower peninsula — places Detroit at the heart of this resistance. Colors borrowed from Haring’s AIDS-era work evoke queer resilience, while the central figure — a Black or brown trans woman — honors those, such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who have long led the fight for LGBTQ+ liberation.

Below, Eddie shares more about the politics of Pride, the symbolism layered into the cover, and how art can help us organize, remember and move forward — together.

Between The Lines cover, June 5, 2025. Artwork: Eddie Chaffer

Your work sits at the intersection of visual storytelling, identity and resistance. How do you consciously bridge art and activism in your creative practice?

The reason I became a muralist is because I was too broke to pay art museum admission fees. At the peak of my quarter life existential crisis — exacerbated by living in the capitalist hellscape of New York Shitty — I came to believe that public art was the only truly ethical, humanist way to make art in the modern world. My feelings on this topic have mellowed a bit over the years, but I still consider mural-making my priority because of its radical accessibility. With mural work, there are no admission fees, dress codes or billionaire collectors. It’s a big painting on a big wall, and you stumble across it, and maybe you like it, and maybe you don’t, but either way you get to experience it.

The high visibility of public art has made me extremely aware of the impact of my work. It’s a massive responsibility to create something so large and so ingrained in a neighborhood’s daily existence. I've learned to use such a platform intentionally for the highest good. To me, an avid Earth-worshipper, that usually takes the form of environmental activism.

What was your inspiration behind this Pride cover design? What message or emotion were you hoping to evoke?

I've been thinking a lot about early Prides. Prides that took place way before corporate sponsorships and “Drag Race.” Prides where people got beat up and arrested. This illustration is inspired by the colors and immediacy of Keith Haring’s AIDS work, the propagandistic designs of Gran Fury and the protests of ACT UP!

Pride in 2025 feels a lot more like Pride in 1985 than it should, and I wanted to communicate the urgency of that reality.

This cover is arriving in a politically charged moment, especially for queer and trans communities. How does the work reflect what’s on your heart and mind right now?

From my perspective, many younger generations of queer people — my own included — have gotten comfortable and complacent thanks to the illusion of acceptance. Since marriage equality, we have been living in a fantasy where everything is fine just because you can buy a rainbow bath towel at Target. If queerness is acceptable for consumers, then we’re good, right?

Now, we're getting a wake-up call. Social media is controlled by billionaire oligarchs. Corporations are distancing themselves from queerness to protect their stock prices. Essential medical care for trans people is being gutted. Queerness is no longer popular, and superficial support is disappearing rapidly as a result.

There are a lot of young people who have only ever known queerness in its popular, mass-market form. Rainbow socks and cuddle puddles. As acceptance dwindles, we need to look to our surviving elders and learn how to organize. How do we find each other without social media? How do we care for each other when the medical system abandons us? How do we shed this often self-imposed identity of “tender queerness” and embrace the inherent radicalness of our identities?

Pride is both a celebration and a protest. How do you balance those two energies in your visual work, especially when designing for a public-facing platform like this cover?

I try to walk the line between accessibility and complexity in my work. Bright colors! Big shapes! That’s how I reel ya in. But if you’re willing to take a moment with the work, there’s a lot of subtler messaging layered in there as well. In this illustration, for example, it’s a pretty basic “good vs. evil” theme. It communicates Pride, struggle and resistance. If that’s all someone takes away from it, great.

But with some more context, it’s a better piece. The snake is a reference to evil, obviously, but more acutely to the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag, which has been adopted by white supremacist groups. The raised right hand is a symbol for “stop,” but also a reference to Michigan’s lower peninsula, where the star marks Detroit. The colors are taken from Keith Haring’s work during the AIDS crisis. Finally, the identity of the figure is important as well — Black and brown trans women have historically led the way for queer civil rights, and continue to do so today. All this symbolism taken together reveals a more direct message: that Michiganders must stop fascism from infiltrating our state, and that we must look to the Black and brown leaders of our past in order to learn how to move forward.

Son Visual Co. centers historically excluded voices in bold and intentional ways. How do you ensure your art remains rooted in community, especially when working on larger platforms or collaborations?

A lot of my community organizing work stems from having imposter syndrome [laughs]. I’m a huge lover of the natural world, but don’t know much about the science behind it. So, I began to make work that gave me an excuse to talk to scientists. That kind of work functions as a platform for ecologists to communicate their research to a wider audience. Before ya know it, you’ve started a whole nonprofit dedicated to environmental education through public art. Whoops!

Most of my projects nowadays involve a lot of people from varying backgrounds — environmentalists, musicians, artists, social workers, homesteaders, firefighters, poets, etc. — speaking on a central ecological theme. With the elevation of many voices, we hope to find deeper understanding.

As it turns out, conservation is the best topic for bridging political divides, too. My team is made up of a bunch of trans people, but we regularly engage with old-school deer hunter types who think that they’re conservative. But then, when they meet us in person at a birding event, they have to reconsider their views. “I thought I didn’t like trans people, but that guy knew a LOT about native plants…” We find something that we agree on — that the Earth is good — and the rest is kind of secondary. My community is always expanding because of this approach.

What else should we know about you?

I’m the founder and director of an ecology-themed mural festival called Pleasant Peninsula. This July we’ll be installing 21 new murals in downtown Grand Rapids, each featuring a different native Michigan species! Our fest illustrates how the natural world relies on diversity for the health of its ecosystems, and how we as Michiganders can be better neighbors to humans and non-humans alike. Come to Grand Rapids on July 26 to party with us, or learn more about what we do at pleasantpeninsula.org!