My hope is that by providing curriculum on the website for high schools and colleges to use, more students will be able to do art for and with others. And for those up and coming artists who have the temperament to work with lots of different people with differing cultures, this will be a stepping-stone for them to do more murals and to encourage or inspire them to find other types of art to make for and with others.
I was a mentor for the Kent Bellows Program on Omaha for a couple years teaching in the Mural Arts program. It is part of Joslyn Art Museum’s programming and a group of 3-5 high school students usually paint one mural per semester. They learn to listen to a client, take notes, to design collaboratively with each other and the mentor, and then to paint together. For these murals, the client doesn’t paint – but it was a learning experience for me to watch how a few people can paint at the same time and to divide the areas up to make painting it easier. We painted murals for a food pantry, a grade school, a day care, and some for the general public by walking trails. The best part of this experience was that the students seemed so glad each time to have been able to paint a mural that brightened the days of those who encountered it. Some summer days we painted in very high heat and humidity, yet the students still showed up.
CURRICULUM COMING SOON
LINKS TO EXTERNAL SITES: