Art Enriches Our Lives

Mural for Wright Elementary School - Finished!

Mural Vinyl Lettering Installation

Mural Vinyl Lettering Application

This charming, welcoming little mural is for the John B. Wright elementary school entry lobby.The school has a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, hence the STEM in the school title.

In collaboration with the principle, Maria Marin, the design features a bit from several areas.
The Monarch butterfly life cycle on the left will reference the school garden in the courtyard that will teach students plant life cycles and butterfly life cycles by planting the milkweed which is the food source for the caterpillars.

Clouds and rain illustrate climatology. Our solar system on the right shows our planets place in our solar system ruled by our sun.

Little R2's cousin is the robotic technology reference and will provide the students with an opportunity to name it - maybe a contest!

Erupting volcano and sedimentary rock layers the robot is standing on remind of the earth's geological history.

A family of little quail reference the natural world and biology of nature.

Seek and find numbers from 1 - 12 are hidden in the mural. Some are obvious, some more hidden and a few require that special and most important ingredient - Imagination!

Where would we be without imagination of inventors who thought - "what if" and invented cars, electricity, computers, even air conditioning.

Before the mural - the original entry.

The vinyl lettering for the professional finish to this mural was generously donated by the Cook Sign Company, who did the school's original outdoor sign many years ago and has been making signs since 1976.
Another invention - digital lettering! Hand lettering is not common and today almost every lettering and sign is fabricated on a computer digitally and applied either by hand or machine.

These letters were carefully rubbed onto the rough surface using fingers on the thin fragile letters. The letters are self adhesive and merely require a super clean surface to stick, much like decals.
I wonder who Imagined this brilliant concept.....

As this mural demonstrates, art is meant to be shared and enriches our lives.

Have you found all 12 numbers?

Seek and Find

Original Proposal

Finished Mural

Elementary School mural finished! Lettering for the school name is currently being asked for as a donation from sign and trophy companies. Hand lettering is a skill all on it's own and I will defer to a digital output that will look much cleaner than I could ever do by hand. Plus the surface is rough, making hand lettering very challenging. If there is someone out there who can donate the lettering, please contact the school or me "~)
The current sign is a temporary printout until permanent lettering is installed. Better than a blank space!

I know that Tucson will open it's heart and someone will donate the lettering. Funds are so limited that this mural was done as a pay-it-forward gesture in gratitude for all of the wonderful people who have helped me and been generous to me - often when I least expected it which made it that much sweeter.
Done with house paints and sealed with clear satin varnish.

This is a STEM focus school. Science, technology, engineering, and math. The arts are not excluded as demonstrated by this mural. There are numbers from 1 - 12 hidden in the mural for a "seek and find". The little ones especially will have fun looking for the numbers. The Monarch butterfly shows it's stages from caterpillar thru  butterfly. A little family of quail have their own special markings. R2 D2 has a cousin that is more of a gardener than a space traveler and there is our own galaxy with sun and planets and special constellation! The live volcano spews lava that cools into sedimentary layers of rock that the robot is standing on.

So start looking for those numbers and let me know how many you find!

Darn Lucky!

S.T.A.R. Academic Center Peace Garden student
public art project 02/12

Happy St. Patty's Day! Yes I am Darn Lucky and truly count my many blessings!
Here is one of the 'Blessings', another student mosaic project with STAR.
Actually, my third mosaic art youth project working with STAR Academic Center. Thanks to art educator Roberta Lewis who writes grants for the school the student have the opportunity to experience a new medium that has existed for over 5000 years. Mosaics are extremely versatile and durable when fabricated for outdoors. The students enjoy the challenge of learning the techniques and here are photos of some wonderful pieces that came from this latest project. The pieces were created for a Peace Garden to be attached to cement planters. My friend Walter Gunn volunteered his time and labor to help install the finished student mosaics. The installation is as labor intensive as the actual mosaic work! There will follow another collage of the installation.
The first mosaic project was for the school sign. Designed by the students it was a fun learning project.
The second mosaic project was an installation of stars inside the school courtyard. Hand picked students designed and mosaic ed their individual stars with a word that that empowered them. Pictures on that coming soon too! They turned out great.

STAR student Mosaic Project

Here are more student pieces for the star mural project. I have been doing a grouting marathon to get these done in time for installation and still have three more to go. Plus the large logo star! All are glued onto 1/4" hardi backer cement board, then cut with an angle head grinder, then grouted. Stars are 3' x 2' approx. and hearts are 10" and done on 1/2" Easy board. Stars will be installed onto a painted brick wall with thin set and anchor bolts. Same for the little hearts. Custom grout was used in Dove Grey. Kind of dark now but on a south west facing wall it will lighten up. Back to work now!