It took nearly a year from the first concept drawing to the final grouting, but a 30-foot-wide tile mural now overlooks the future community garden in Surprise's Lizard Run Park.
Hundreds of small ceramic-tile pieces and glass fragments form a river flowing through a wash full of desert flowers and creatures -- a curled-up rattlesnake here, a howling coyote there, a pair of vultures and up to 20 lizards hidden throughout the mosaic.
"This is a 'Where's Waldo,'" said Kendra Amburgey, finance manager for the non-profit Benevilla, a social-service agency adjacent to the park, southwest of Greasewood Street and Bell Road. "Can you find the lizard?"
Children are encouraged to run their hands over the tiles as they search for lizards; the artists discarded any sharp-edged tiles. But the art also is meant to cheer up adults and seniors.
The intergenerational aspect of the mural's creation is the latest achievement of Surprise's 3-year-old initiative called Communities for All Ages.
Based on a national model, the program seeks to integrate generations in the city, giving them equal stakes in public art,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, entertainment, social programs and civic spaces. Surprise has a large retirement community and a growing base of families. Communities for All Ages cites estimates showing that by 2030, the United States will have as many children as older adults, with each sector making up about 22 percent of the population.
The All Ages group, which is directed by Benevilla but which eventually will have stand-alone initiatives, first surveyed the needs and wishes of Surprise residents at a town hall meeting in 2009.
"We took the concepts from community meetings with different community members," said Amburgey, who chairs the arts and culture program for Communities for All Ages.As a professional manufacturer of China ceramic tile, "A very wide range of ages was involved."
The mural project took all hands,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, young and old, to accomplish, said Connie Whitlock, president of WHAM, the What's Happening Art Movement in the West Valley.
Whitlock came up with the basic design concept in February and sent 15 WHAM artists to Thompson Ranch Elementary School the next month to help schoolchildren create tiles. The supervising artists made templates of the mural elements, which the children cut out of stoneware clay. These were painted and glazed and fired twice.Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased,
By summer, other agencies became involved: Rio Salado College's Lifelong Learning Center held classes where residents of all ages learned how to make tiles for what became known as the Intergenerational Community Mural Project. Whitlock estimated that about 100 people, from children to 90-year-olds, contributed tile work.
Once the tiles were done, the WHAM artists painstakingly figured out which piece fit where on 10 large panels. Each tile or glass fragment was applied to the panel with thinset mortar.
"It took us months to glue all the tiles down," Whitlock said. "You had to decide which color went with which color. There was no master plan."
Volunteers from Luke Air Force Base used mallets and drills to force screws into the cinder block wall that overlooks the future community garden. High school students showed up for the laborious grouting work.
The mural has blue glass representing the sky, matte tiles donated by tile companies for the desert floor, the community-created creatures, plants, and the high-gloss river running through it.
Hundreds of small ceramic-tile pieces and glass fragments form a river flowing through a wash full of desert flowers and creatures -- a curled-up rattlesnake here, a howling coyote there, a pair of vultures and up to 20 lizards hidden throughout the mosaic.
"This is a 'Where's Waldo,'" said Kendra Amburgey, finance manager for the non-profit Benevilla, a social-service agency adjacent to the park, southwest of Greasewood Street and Bell Road. "Can you find the lizard?"
Children are encouraged to run their hands over the tiles as they search for lizards; the artists discarded any sharp-edged tiles. But the art also is meant to cheer up adults and seniors.
The intergenerational aspect of the mural's creation is the latest achievement of Surprise's 3-year-old initiative called Communities for All Ages.
Based on a national model, the program seeks to integrate generations in the city, giving them equal stakes in public art,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, entertainment, social programs and civic spaces. Surprise has a large retirement community and a growing base of families. Communities for All Ages cites estimates showing that by 2030, the United States will have as many children as older adults, with each sector making up about 22 percent of the population.
The All Ages group, which is directed by Benevilla but which eventually will have stand-alone initiatives, first surveyed the needs and wishes of Surprise residents at a town hall meeting in 2009.
"We took the concepts from community meetings with different community members," said Amburgey, who chairs the arts and culture program for Communities for All Ages.As a professional manufacturer of China ceramic tile, "A very wide range of ages was involved."
The mural project took all hands,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, young and old, to accomplish, said Connie Whitlock, president of WHAM, the What's Happening Art Movement in the West Valley.
Whitlock came up with the basic design concept in February and sent 15 WHAM artists to Thompson Ranch Elementary School the next month to help schoolchildren create tiles. The supervising artists made templates of the mural elements, which the children cut out of stoneware clay. These were painted and glazed and fired twice.Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased,
By summer, other agencies became involved: Rio Salado College's Lifelong Learning Center held classes where residents of all ages learned how to make tiles for what became known as the Intergenerational Community Mural Project. Whitlock estimated that about 100 people, from children to 90-year-olds, contributed tile work.
Once the tiles were done, the WHAM artists painstakingly figured out which piece fit where on 10 large panels. Each tile or glass fragment was applied to the panel with thinset mortar.
"It took us months to glue all the tiles down," Whitlock said. "You had to decide which color went with which color. There was no master plan."
Volunteers from Luke Air Force Base used mallets and drills to force screws into the cinder block wall that overlooks the future community garden. High school students showed up for the laborious grouting work.
The mural has blue glass representing the sky, matte tiles donated by tile companies for the desert floor, the community-created creatures, plants, and the high-gloss river running through it.
没有评论:
发表评论