A few weeks ago, we did a thing and painted 6 murals in less than 48 hours. Oh, and we had some fun in the process!
We had worked with the fabulous Principal and the amazing community of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Elementary School for years running educational art programs for the students.
Years ago Ms. Banfield asked us, “Can you paint a mural in the gym?” I said yes! I came back to the office, told The Lovely Rita – she shook her head because we had never done a mural before. “How hard could it be?” I muttered?
So I reached out and spoke to about 5 muralists, watched YouTube for hours, and I even practiced on our own walls. We were ready! The first mural in 2020 was in the gym – it was big, bold, fantastic and beautiful if I do say so myself.
After the pandemic ( present day ) we returned to the school, painted the school logo being the mascot ( the owl ), collected all of the tall ladders we could find and brought a few of our own, curated an incredible team of artists, outliners and painters and executed 6 beautiful murals.
We believe that murals have the opportunity to tell the community’s story, create a unique experience, engage citizens, increase foot traffic and tourism, increase appreciation for the arts and artists, and increase overall attractiveness of the space.
I had mentioned in my last blog post, that in the last 10 years walking around in my city, becoming an art teacher, and executing The Mural Project with Kelly, I really fell in love with murals and began to truly understand their importance and the impact they make in schools are even greater. It adds a brightness to the hallways, and if the children take part in the painting process, it gives them a sense of pride and forms a legacy.
Since 2020 we have created an abundance of murals for schools, so I guess you can say we are muralists too!!
What do murals mean to you? How can they bring a community together? Inspire you? Create jobs for artists? What else can come out of creating murals? Think about it..
Until then,
The Art Teacher