Joplin Community Mural Project

In July, I mentioned that a team of artists was working in Joplin to create a Community Mural. The team met with children, and adult members of the community to create a vision for Joplin's mural. The design is now complete and the team is working on the painting stages of the mural.

Here are a few iPhone photos from the first community painting day.

 And here are a couple of Lensbaby photos from that first community painting day:

I would also like to share a conversation I had with a man on Facebook...he commented on the local newspaper's article link about the mural on August 24th:

Man: Is this free to the city? 

Newspaper: The chamber's Cultural Affairs Committee received grant funding as well as assistance through the Mid America Arts Alliance and funds raised during the "Dancing With the Stars" event.

Man: I'm just curious because there is local artist who would have gladly donated their talents to a project like this...as one of the co-painters of the Hope Wall on 20th and Main I have been working with others to try to get more projects like this going...the hope wall with its thousands of signatures and messages from survivors, volunteers and organizations also became a "community based mural" by artists who donated their time to give something back to our city...dont get me wrong I'm not against this mural but my goal as an artist since this terrible event has been to do these things with minimal costs so that money is spent on rebuilding our city...lack of art or artists in this community is not in jeopardy but as more and more debris is removed the lack of homes, businesses and even something as simple as trees seems so much more important to me...I hope this isn't taken the wrong way...im just passionate about helping joplin recover from this tragedy

Me: 'Man's name', what an amazing opportunity for you!! The mural team is a group of incredibly talented artists working throughout the Midwest to create murals in rural communities. They are working artists (because artists can't donate everything they do, or else they would never eat!), who are affiliated with the Mid-America Arts Alliance Mural Project. Dave Loewenstein is incredibly talented at gathering the insight from an entire community and its vision for a mural design. The grant was in the works as early as last year, and was approved in March. The team arrived in Joplin in July and has been meeting with community groups to develop a design for the mural. You should definitely head down there this weekend to talk to them, you have some great insight on keeping their community art momentum going after they leave!! All artists are welcome to donate their time and talents and be part of this amazing mural. Wow, I am so excited about this project, after seeing what has been painted in other small towns this is a really amazing opportunity for Joplin!!

Man: I work Saturday...may go up Sunday   

I am watching comments on other post relating to the mural...One woman said: 'I think that is cool what they r doing there but wish they would of did it the way ppl did it at 20th an main wall by the station....'

I really, really, really cannot wait for people to see how incredible this mural will be when it is finished!!

A Vision for Joplin

A muralist is in Joplin, meeting with the community, planning a mural for our city and he asked a group of my students to draw what they wanted to see in the mural, to draw their vision of Joplin.

The teenagers had trouble coming up with ideas because before the tornado, Joplin was pretty boring...and since the tornado, everything that we used to take for granted is so much more precious.

We drew a sketch for our mural and put a big drive-in screen, with cars from every decade parked in front...and a playground with children who could see 'butterfly men' fluttering around them.

Our sketch had lots of trees, and somewhere in the design, we wanted people wading in a creek, catching crawdads. We thought it was important for the mural to show downtown and discussed how much of the mural should be devoted to the tornado. The students agreed that they wanted it to show happy people in Joplin.

Here is the mural team at Spiva, presenting their history, how they are working with the Midwest Art Alliance to bring art to small comunties....sharing a bit about what they do and also showing us example of other murals they have done. The more I learn about Dave, and what he has done in other communities, I am so impressed and excited about the mural.

This project is going to be amazing, I cannot wait to see what Dave and his team come up with for Joplin. To follow their progress and read about what the are doing around town, you can follow the blog here: http://joplincommunityartproject.blogspot.com/

While the team was there, we showed them the mural we made.

Art Lounge students made a list of words to describe how people in Joplin felt after the tornado. The students, aged 10-16 selected some of the positive words and some of the  negative words from the list to include in the mural around a central figure. The figure in the center was left faceless so that viewers can picture the faces of those who helped them after the storm. The figure represents neighbor helping neighbor to cleanup and rebuild.

The mural was created on a blue tarp, which represents the new, yet temporary landscape of the city. The acrylic paint will eventually peel and chip off the surface, just as the blue tarps will be replaced with shingles and new roofs.

The Art Lounge mural is currently on display at Spiva if you want to see it in person.

I plan to photograph the Joplin mural project while it is in progress so watch my blog for future updates.

What would your vision for the mural be? What would you include in a mural about Joplin?