The VA Hospital's Tunnel Murals from Beacon Heights and Clayton Middle School Students
Student Murals for the V.A. Hospital
Donna Pence, Art Teacher
Beacon Heights Elementary and Clayton Middle School
Back in August, our district arts coordinator, Rosanne Henderson, was contacted by Jerry Adamson about having students paint murals in the tunnels of the VA Hospital. The Hospital has over a mile of mostly underground walkways that connect various buildings on their campus. The tunnels are tiled up four feet on either side, then sheet-rocked for the remaining four feet to the ceiling. It was this portion that they were interested in having adorned.
When Rosanne asked if I would be interested in this project, I was grappling with the prospect of teaching at two different schools this year, but also felt that the social studies and community service integration on a project like this was extremely valuable. Plus the grant money offered of $1000 would be a nice supplement to a non-existent art budget. Little did I know how many valuable lessons we were about to learn.
Beacon Heights
After having students research Veteran’s stories from among their families and friends and having Mack’s Grandpa Dave speak to us about his service in the Vietnam War, we began our individual rough drafts, and from those, our group collaborations. The students made full scale mock ups on butcher paper that we displayed at the Fall Festival of the Arts in early October. I sent the photographs of the student work to the VA to illustrate our progress.
Questions arose from the VA as to whether the work would be appropriate. Concerns over the references to war and the children’s impressions, sparked a debate as to whether they wanted to hire a professional to do the job. I spoke to the teachers of the students and their principal about the matter and it was decided that we would let the kids decide what they wanted to do. One option was to abandon the project, another was to find a new venue for their murals and raise money to pay for them, but what they chose to do was to try to convince the VA to take their murals by writing letters. After the letters were written, but before they could be delivered, it was decided by the VA to go ahead with the student project, and there was much rejoicing.
We have 9) 4’x8’ murals done by the 4th and 6th grade classes at Beacon Heights.
Murals 1-3 are from Judy Marcy's 6th grade
Murals 4-6 are from Guen Foster’s 6th grade
Mural 7 “75 years of Service” was mine and my husband, Paul Heath’s contribution, but features 6th grader Chris Athens’ portrait of the Veteran pilot.
Mural 8 “Maps and Monuments” is from Dean Johnson’s 4th grade
Mural 9 “Postcards to Veterans” is from Louisa Giles’ 4th grade
Clayton Middle School
The Multi-Cultural Crafts/3D design class at Clayton began their mural project by viewing a video of community murals in Chicago Illinois, studying the murals of Diego Rivera, and the tessellations of Escher. This class of 21 students created 10) 2’ x 4’ approx. murals using Veteran symbols and imagery that they researched. Their challenge was to create an image in both the positive and negative space, enlarge their design, trace it onto the board, cut some of those shapes out of MDF with coping saws, paint and assemble with glue and spacers. This was interpreted in different ways by different pairs of students, and their collaboration was remarkable, assessing which skills each student brought to their team (design, painting, sawing, etc.) often reworking their mural several times. Please read their short paragraph that accompanies their tessellated murals.
Donna Pence, Art Teacher
Beacon Heights Elementary and Clayton Middle School
Back in August, our district arts coordinator, Rosanne Henderson, was contacted by Jerry Adamson about having students paint murals in the tunnels of the VA Hospital. The Hospital has over a mile of mostly underground walkways that connect various buildings on their campus. The tunnels are tiled up four feet on either side, then sheet-rocked for the remaining four feet to the ceiling. It was this portion that they were interested in having adorned.
When Rosanne asked if I would be interested in this project, I was grappling with the prospect of teaching at two different schools this year, but also felt that the social studies and community service integration on a project like this was extremely valuable. Plus the grant money offered of $1000 would be a nice supplement to a non-existent art budget. Little did I know how many valuable lessons we were about to learn.
Beacon Heights
After having students research Veteran’s stories from among their families and friends and having Mack’s Grandpa Dave speak to us about his service in the Vietnam War, we began our individual rough drafts, and from those, our group collaborations. The students made full scale mock ups on butcher paper that we displayed at the Fall Festival of the Arts in early October. I sent the photographs of the student work to the VA to illustrate our progress.
Questions arose from the VA as to whether the work would be appropriate. Concerns over the references to war and the children’s impressions, sparked a debate as to whether they wanted to hire a professional to do the job. I spoke to the teachers of the students and their principal about the matter and it was decided that we would let the kids decide what they wanted to do. One option was to abandon the project, another was to find a new venue for their murals and raise money to pay for them, but what they chose to do was to try to convince the VA to take their murals by writing letters. After the letters were written, but before they could be delivered, it was decided by the VA to go ahead with the student project, and there was much rejoicing.
We have 9) 4’x8’ murals done by the 4th and 6th grade classes at Beacon Heights.
Murals 1-3 are from Judy Marcy's 6th grade
Murals 4-6 are from Guen Foster’s 6th grade
Mural 7 “75 years of Service” was mine and my husband, Paul Heath’s contribution, but features 6th grader Chris Athens’ portrait of the Veteran pilot.
Mural 8 “Maps and Monuments” is from Dean Johnson’s 4th grade
Mural 9 “Postcards to Veterans” is from Louisa Giles’ 4th grade
Clayton Middle School
The Multi-Cultural Crafts/3D design class at Clayton began their mural project by viewing a video of community murals in Chicago Illinois, studying the murals of Diego Rivera, and the tessellations of Escher. This class of 21 students created 10) 2’ x 4’ approx. murals using Veteran symbols and imagery that they researched. Their challenge was to create an image in both the positive and negative space, enlarge their design, trace it onto the board, cut some of those shapes out of MDF with coping saws, paint and assemble with glue and spacers. This was interpreted in different ways by different pairs of students, and their collaboration was remarkable, assessing which skills each student brought to their team (design, painting, sawing, etc.) often reworking their mural several times. Please read their short paragraph that accompanies their tessellated murals.