Sometime last fall Colin came home from a PTA meeting at Milo’s school and told me about a proposal to paint a mural in the arena. This building - an old equestrian arena from the days when the school was a horse farm - is used as a gym and was undergoing a renovation. Colin was like, “We thought maybe you and Betsy would want to paint it.”
My initial response was a little cool. I don’t like being volunteered for things. It seemed like a lot of work. I didn’t have an idea for a mural or even know how to paint one. But I love this school and ultimately I was honored to be asked, so I said yes.
A lot of time passed. I was busy, and maybe secretly hoping that everyone had forgotten about the arena mural. But eventually emails started circulating about it. Thankfully, fellow artist and parent Betsy Walton stepped up and proposed an idea: a barn quilt inspired mural that the whole school could collaborate on. She mocked up a design with quilt square patterns in various sizes. It looked nice! I started to get excited.
Arbor School is K-8 and its student body is organized into “buddy families”. There are twenty-one buddy families, each one made up of a student from each grade. For the first phase of this project, every buddy family collaborated on a collaged quilt square made of construction paper. Then the faculty split into groups and created seven more.
Once we had twenty-eight quilt squares and the entire school had effectively contributed, we scanned them all and created a mural design using Betsy’s mockup as a template.
We divided the mural into thirteen sections to be painted on 4’ x 8’ plywood panels. The plan was to have the middle school kids draw the designs on the panels and then paint them.
It took us a month to paint this mural and it happened to be the month that Colin, my musician husband, was away on tour. I’m protective of my studio time - it’s one of the reasons I didn’t jump at the chance to work on this project. I’m probably happiest alone in my studio drawing and painting and I’m always a little reluctant to take on things that will keep me away from that insular world for too long.
I’m especially reluctant when Colin is gone. I rely on that time alone making art to preserve my precarious mental health as I parent two kids on my own and attempt to meet deadlines. But over this month, for the first time in eighteen years, I began to question this. Is the strict way I guard my time and space a vestige of my earlier days, when my kids were little? It’s hard to be an artist and the mother of babies. Two powerful forces pull you in two opposite directions every day. It was really hard when I had to do it alone. How have those early parenting years shaped the way that I move through the world today? And do they still have to?
We dedicated two days a week to the mural: Tuesdays and Thursdays. I committed to being there in the mornings, when small groups of middle school kids were scheduled to help us paint. I was free to go at lunch but found, to my surprise, that I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay at the school. The instinct to retreat to my studio - always so automatic - was mysteriously ebbing.
We worked on the mural in the loft of the building that the school uses for - among other things - music classes. It looks out on a forest through big picture windows. Mornings spent working on the mural with students and parent volunteers were chaotic and fun. After lunch, when our middle school helpers had gone, we stayed to paint in the dappled light and talk in a whisper while kids rehearsed songs for the school’s annual Ceilli celebration. It was very sweet. I stopped fretting about deadlines and abandoned myself completely to this community project. My month without Colin was much better for it.
Sound on:
This beautiful voice belongs to Joanna Vincent Sproul.
Betsy and I pioneered this collaborative mural project with tons of help and input from Arbor teachers. We’re really proud of it. We would probably even entertain invitations to do it at other schools if there was interest and the situation was right. Just saying.
Here’s how we got the panels painted:
8th graders were given yard sticks and diagrams with dimensions for each panel. First they gridded the panel in pencil following the blue lines and specs on the diagram. Then, following the black lines, they drew the pattern with colored pencil and erased any unnecessary gridded lines. They did an outstanding job.
Meanwhile, Betsy and I narrowed the palette down to eleven colors and set to work mixing them. Betsy had a ton of house paint left over from a mural project in Seattle and, with the exception of red and magenta, we were able to mix everything from this collection of old paint.
Once everything was drawn, we began to paint with small groups of kids. We weren’t sure how this would go. Many of the quilt patterns were complicated and required a steady hand. But the project was very forgiving. We all made mistakes and painted wobbly lines, kids and adults alike. We all dripped and splattered. I accidentally dipped my hair in a cup of paint at least once a week. And when the month was over, we had a vibrant, collaborative fifty-two foot mural.
We installed it last Saturday. This was another feat of collaboration and manpower. The panels are on 3/4” plywood and they’re heavy.
As with every other step of this project, installation took half as long as I thought it would. I’m used to working alone. I generally research, overthink, second guess, try and fail a few times before I finally puzzle out on my own how to do a thing that I don’t know how to do. That’s my weird workflow: lots of experimentation, no thought for efficiency, and a resigned expectation that everything always takes forever. I predicted that this project would take a few months and I anticipated setbacks, but we tackled it with a community so big and so game that there was a skill set to solve every problem. Things went smoothly and fast.
MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK.
This is a guiding principle of Arbor School. As a person who loves to toil in isolation, I have to be taught this lesson again and again. Every time I think I’ve learned it, I learn it some more.
This collaboration filled my cup right up. I’m profoundly grateful for the big group of adults and kids that made it happen.
There are so many people to thank: Lori, Heidi, Nick, James, Erin, Kristy, Annie, Patricia, Steph, Jo, Hans, Gina, Isaac, JD, Colin, Scott, David, Todd, Brian, Tom, and more. Thanks to all the kids who helped paint and haul heavy wooden panels around. Thanks to Arbor School for supporting the project and bringing us together. Thanks to the APT for funding it. Okay, fine, thanks to Colin for volunteering me. I’m really glad he did. And a million thanks to Betsy for being a great creative collaborator.
Seriously, hit us up. We haven’t thought this through at all, but maybe we’ll come paint a mural with your kid’s school.
Many Hands Make Light Work