July 17, 2007
Research can entail a lot more than sequestering oneself in the dusty stacks of a library or performing experiments in a lab. Sometimes it involves paintbrushes, pools and dead fish.
This summer, three Rollins College students and their professor used their research to beautify the local community one mural at a time. Professor Rachel Simmons of the Department of Art and Art History and studio major Meghan Medina completed three collaborative community mural projects over the summer as members of the Young Scholars Collective and as participants in the Student-Faculty Summer Scholarship Program. They were joined in their efforts by Andrew Cohen, a first-year studio art major and Erica Tibbetts, a junior who is double majoring in studio art and English.
As part of their research on community art, the team finished three murals for Rollins community partners. They sent out applications to a listserv of community partners to select which organizations would most benefit from their work. Those applying had to demonstrate that the murals would enhance their facilities and engage the members of that community in the activity of collaborating with the mural artists. Sites also had to be highly regarded and serve a need in the community. Finally, the community partner had to be otherwise unable to complete the mural project without the assistance of the artists and support from Rollins.
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| Rollins junior Erica Tibbetts spends time wth the kids at Winter Park Day Nursery. |
The community partners that were chosen were the Jewish Community Center, the Winter Park Day Nursery and the Girls and Boys Town of Oviedo. Besides providing visually pleasing murals, the artists know there is a larger point to public art projects. “Community art brightens living and working spaces,” Tibbetts said. “It is a way for clients to identify their values.” “It helps give them a sense of identity,” added Medina.
Each mural is a different size and followed different specifications to best suit the group. The Jewish Community Center mural spanned a wall in a wing where they hold summer camp. They wanted the mural to caapure the diverse activities the camp offers. After taking pictures of themselves doing things like swimming to use as guides, the artists painted silhouettes of different activities. “We received a lot of guidance from the Jewish Community Center as to what they wanted the mural to include,” Simmons said. “We used all of their marketing materials, their color palette and spelled out their core values in Hebrew.”
The group made a mural to attach to the playground fence at the Winter Park Day Nursery. It features the alphabet, numbers and Spanish words to describe the colors and shapes. “It is interesting that at the Jewish Community Center suggested what colors to use and the project took us just four days,” Tibbetts said. “With the Winter Park Day Nursery, we had more freedom, which made the process a little harder and longer.”
The artists usually start with a site visit to plan their murals and bond with the beneficiaries of their artwork. The Day Nursery wanted to include the children in the art process. They had the kids trace their hands, which were then used to form bushes in the mural. They also brought along dead grunt fish to use as stencils. The children rolled the fish in ink and then pressed them onto paper. The designs were later collaged into a pond in the mural.
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Assistant Professor of Art and Art History Rachel Simmons with children at the Winter Park Day Nursery. |
The last mural the artists worked on was for the Girls and Boys Town of Oviedo. They created a portable mural for the walls of the emergency foster care facility. The room needed something on the walls to cheer and engage the children. The group spoke with the caregivers at the facility to find out what the children would like to look at and experience every day. The artists decided to complete an Antarctic-themed mural. It has a family-friendly theme, with groups of various animals shown caring for their young.
To complete the summer research project, the artists will write a paper on community art and present their findings at conferences. For them, art is a passion that will go beyond their work this summer. It can also be a bridge to serving the community. “Being new to school and the community, the mural project seemed like a good way to transfer what I do in my own time to something that could serve Rollins and the Winter Park Community,” Cohen said.
Click here to read more on the Community Mural Project blog.
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