A towering four-story mural, telling the story of how New York City gets its water, looms over Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue. The mural, completed in 2008, was sponsored by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and produced by the Groundswell Community Mural project. My image of this mural expresses two different aspects of protection – the mural itself urges viewers to protect and conserve water, while the chain link, barbed-wire fence that diagonally slashes through it protects the mural itself and expresses the nature of urban life.