There’s a huge part of being an entrepreneur, a creative professional and all around executive decision maker that is over looked. That is the skill of vision or rather know good ideas from bad ideas. I had 2 principals say the same 1 word – Community. Although the other principal explained her vision and I designed for the rocky texture of the wall, the project was scrapped. That said, it was brilliantly designed in its simplicity and easy enough for a child to paint on a different surface. The brilliant vision of one client thrown away was indeed the treasure of another client. Without losing time, I was able to bring this awesomeness to fruition. Don’t throw out good ideas.
This mural was already programmed to say “Community” and the coming together of students in play. Additionally having every student in the school partake in a little bit of the endeavor stacks “Community” on Community. One boy asked me what the meaning of this artwork was. In simplest terms, I told him it’s “to remind you that you are apart of something larger… so you’re painting something larger than yourself.” He then asked me if I thought I was funny and I do. We agreed to disagree there. I just make very nerdy artwork.
We had students 5 at a time spend 5 minutes filling in the people, the Earth and nebula until every student had an opportunity to paint. I do not think kids and spraypaint mix together well, so I did that after hours and over the weekend when they weren’t present. We kept this project under control the entire time. I had no behavioral issues from K-6. No one spilt paint.
Funny story: T-K, the class before Kinderarten for those born after school starts, came out and dutifully painted without saying anything silly to me. Their teacher, however, came out afterschool to the wall and said her students explained to her that they painted a mermaid but there was no mermaid on the mock up she had seen. They painted this to the left and we had a good laugh about it. Interpretation is everything.
Here’s how it all came together.
