The teens and staff of the Leadership and Resiliency Program of the Housing Authority of the County of Salt Lake met with me and some of the local youth from the Harmony Park housing complex to brainstorm, design, and paint this mural in their community space. The main theme of the project was community: what the best aspects of their community were (also, what was missing from their community that they wish they had).

Thanks to artist Max Levi Frieder for assisting with the brainstorming day of the project.

The objective of the Eastside/Westside Project was to help foster an environment of mutual respect and understanding between the two communities by having youth from the two communities cooperate to create art.

This project had five components:

1. Two copies of a ceramic tile mural designed by the youth of YouthCity Central City and Lied Boys and Girls Club with Roger Whiting as lead artist. Designed completed at their respective locations. To be installed at both locations following exhibition at Sorenson Unity Center in June/July 2012.
2. A painted mural on cloth created by the youth of YouthCity Central City, Lied Boys and Girls Club and Sorenson Unity Center with Max Levi Frieder as lead artist and Roger Whiting as assistant. Created at the Sorenson Unity Center from June 21-22, 2012, with brainstorming and sketching activities at all three individual centers on June 20. On exhibition at Unity Center in June/July 2012.
3. Visual arts classes with YouthCity Central City and Lied Boys and Girls Club taught by artist Roger Whiting at their respective locations. YouthCity Central City classes (which included the mural class) occurred from October 2011 to May 2012. Lied BGC classes occurred from February 2012-May 2012.
4. Visual arts activities at the Halloween festival for Central City Recreation Center.
5. A mural unveiling / exhibition at the Sorenson Unity Center to which the local community was invited with free food and an art activity. Exhibition continues at the Unity Center with a copy of the ceramic tile mural and the painted mural both on display through the month of July.

Chantal Esquivias is a Spanish teacher at NDPA and a native of Spain. Esquivias loved the school but thought that the building’s facade could be transformed to support the aesthetic point of view of the school’s Spanish immersion program. In early 2011 Esquivias contacted me to create a mosaic mural with the students.

After meeting with me in August, we both decided that decorating the pillars in front of the school, while an incredibly ambitious task, would result in the most transformative experience for the school.

In order to draw inspiration from Spain, I prefaced the brainstorming process of the project by teaching the students the history of mosaic art in Europe, with an emphasis on how Spanish artist Antonio Gaudí’s art was unique in that it was mosaic art that was clearly made of broken-up prefabricated tile (unlike Renaissance mosaics, which tried to look like paintings).

Sketches for the pillars were developed as the students read “Fairy Tales from Spain” by J. Munoz Escamez. Three tales, “The Judgment of the Flowers”, “The Garden of Health”, and “The Treasure of the Dragon” were chosen for depiction. The students summarized the tales, divided the story into its key moments, and created sketches of those moments in the stories. I then assembled the sketches into black and white designs for the mosaics, which the students colored. I then used those color studies to develop the final draft of the design.

The youth went before the school board in October to get the designs approved, and once a week for the next four months the students met with me to assemble the mosaics onto fiberglass mesh. Assembly was completed in January 2012.

Once the climate allowed, I returned to the school to begin installation. The students participated in almost all aspects of installation including mortaring the pillars, applying the mosaics, patching missing tiles, grouting the mosaics, and sealing the grout. Due to the size of the project, installation took about 60 hours, with students from Esquivias and Lucia Pascual’s classes providing most of the student labor.

Funding for the project was provided by Art Access Utah, in connection with the Utah State Office of Education Special Education Services Unit. Additional support funding for the project was supplied by NDPA and POET, the school’s parent organization.

Thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Standard-Examiner and El Observador de Utah (now OK Español) for their reporting on the project.

I met with youth from Viewmont Elementary School in Murray once a week between October 2011 and January 2012. Students were chosen from the sixth grade classes of the school as well as from the population of youth receiving special education services. As the ability levels of the students involved in the project were very diverse, I developed a project to allow all the youth to express themselves and make a valuable contribution.

I taught the youth about the modernist art movement of the early twentieth century, and how it transitioned into the abstract expressionist art movement, creating artists such as Jackson Pollock who created art by splatter-painting. I also taught the youth about Eric Carle, a youth who grew up in Nazi Germany and learned the value of free self-expression which he used later in life to design beautiful children’s books using collages of splattered and scribbled papers.

The youth then spent the next few weeks using techniques such as splattering, scribbling and sgraffito to create dynamic textures on colored papers which they used to create collages of the alphabet. Those collages were then printed onto ceramic tiles using a service called Change Your Art. The tiles were installed in a mural at Cricket Care, the Murray School District’s daycare center benefiting teen parents. I also worked with the youth to assemble the mosaic border surrounding the tiles.

On Friday, March 23rd at 4:00pm an unveiling was held at Cricket Care to celebrate the youths’ accomplishments in completing this mural.

See also the Press Release at the Murray School District website, adapted from my project description.

This project was made possible by a grant from Art Access, in cooperation with VSA Arts Utah and the Utah State Office of Education Special Education Services Unit.

Teenagers at Kearns Junior High worked with me from October 2011 until April 2012 to create a 60-foot-long work of art showing the core values they represent.

For the first stage of the project the youth brainstormed and sketched ways to show the value statement of the school: that the students should be effective communicators, critical thinkers, responsible citizens, and life long learners. In order to show these concepts, the youth sketched flags, flowers, buildings, the White House, etc. The youth then acted out these different ideas. The photographs of their poses were traced to create the silhouettes of the mural. These sketches and silhouettes were collaged to create the design of the mural. Finally, the next few months were spent painting the design.

For the second stage of the project, the youth decided which core values were most important to them, such as caring, open-mindedness, creativity, etc. The youth then designed the 30-foot mosaic section of the mural on the outside of the school based upon these values. The youth’s vision ended up being much more colorful, silly and fun.

The project was made possible by a generous grant from Target Corporation to ShelterKids, with additional support by Salt Lake County Youth Services, which directs the after-school program at Kearns Junior High.

The mural was unveiled at the Kearns After School Parent Night on April 25th.

Thanks to the Taylorsville/Kearns Journal for their coverage of the project.

In July to August 2011 I led a month-long project with a diverse group of about 15 teenagers from the Housing Authority of the County of Salt Lake’s teen program in order to create a mural about West Valley City.

The result is a bright, bold, colorful mural showing cultural landmarks of the city such as Hale Theater, the Maverik Center, the Kadheema Islamic Center, and the Utah Cultural Celebration Center. Surrounding these landmarks are foods and people representing the culturally diverse residents of West Valley City and plants showing the rich natural habitats in the city.

The Leadership and Resiliency Program of the Housing Authority is an after-school program for teens ages 12-18 whose families live in low-income Public Housing Communities. By participating in service learning the teens are able to become active members of the community and gain empowerment by helping others.*

Since the Program transports teens from all over the the county, most of the teens were unfamiliar with West Valley City. In order to figure out what makes the city tick, the youth first read through the city’s website, and paid special attention to details that defined the city’s culture and heritage. The youth spent a day at the Jordan River creating nature sketches. Finally, in order to learn the residents’ perceptions of the city the youth received permission from Valley Fair Mall to interview visitors about what they thought about the city.

Once all this research was complete, the youth and I created sketches to reflect what they had learned, visiting various significant locations throughout the city. The resulting sketches were cut out and collaged into the design which was then projected onto the wall of the community space at the Academy Park housing complex.  The youth then met the next two weeks painting the mural with me.

*source: http://www.hacsl.org/services/prevention-programs-youth

In July 2011 I received an assignment from the Sandy Central Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to direct the construction of a float for the 2011 Day’s of ’47 Parade.

I helped to put together a committee and picked up a float base from Deseret Transportation. Using a modest budget of $5500 (included budget for warehouse rental), my committee and I created the float between February and July 2011.

As committee chair for the float, I created the original design for the float, and I took the lead of float decoration. Assignments were made for a construction lead (Brent Wade), a welding/mechanical lead (Pat Porter), a secretary (Charlene Clark), and a food chairman (Mike Raleigh), all of whom were critical in the success of the project.

As lead decorator I led 13 youth activities with eight different LDS youth groups. In these activities we created and/or installed decorations for the float. I also helped to organize activities for adults to help with the construction and decoration of elements of the float.

The float participated in the Sandy Fourth of July Parade as well as the 2011 Days of ’47 Parade.

All work on the float, including my own, was done as volunteer service for the church.

The float was featured in the Sandy Journal as well as the Church News (LDS)

From January to June of 2011 I met with the Magna Youth Council to brainstorm what makes Magna a unique, exciting town. The youth opted to turn the sketching and design work to me, so I took their ideas and came up with a design which was modified to their specifications and then submitted to the Magna Arts Council for funding.

The mural explores the rich cultural heritage of the township. Parade onlookers in the mural hold flags representing the nationalities of the original Japanese, Greek, and Italian settlers of Magna. The lead float in the “parade” in the mural is a pirate ship carrying a swashbuckling captain, representing the Cyprus High School mascot.

I met with the youth in July 2011 to paint the mural. The Zion’s Bank of Magna donated use of their basement as a project working space, and the youth spent a Saturday with paint and pizza attacking the four-by-nine foot canvas.

The mural was unveiled at the beginning of Magna’s “Night Out Against Crime” on August 6, 2011. The mural will then spent the next year touring various locations throughout Magna as a tribute to the heritage and culture of the township. The project was featured in the Oquirrh Times online newspaper.

Between the months of October and December 2010 I worked with students of Nibley Park Elementary School every Tuesday on this mosaic mural for the One World Café in downtown Salt Lake City. The café is run by One World Everybody Eats, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing food for the poor on either a free or work-earned basis. They also make their food from organic ingredients and use compost to run a nearly waste-free establishment. The youth who worked on the mural learned about and then visually interpreted those various missions of One World.

Thanks to Sugarhouse Journal, Salt Lake Magazine, and the Salt Lake Tribune for their coverage of this project.

This project was funded in part by a grant from Art Access / VSA Utah in connection with the Utah State Office of Education Special Education Services Unit. Extra thanks to Rosanne Henderson of the Salt Lake City School District and the Salt Lake Education Foundation for their invaluable support.

In order to share with the mission of One World Café with the kids, I created the following video in with Giovanni, the owner and chef of One World describes their mission:

In late November / early December I met with the teens of the Leadership and Resiliency Program of the Housing Authority of Salt Lake County to design a mural for the Housing Authority’s Chamber Room. With the Board on a two-week break for the holidays, we had a short window of opportunity to get a mural painted in the room.

The mural was drawn on the wall and painted in five visits between December 21 and the unveiling on December 30. The unveiling event was highlighted in the Deseret News Online.