Artists stay within lines to paint mural
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 Erie Times News
Fifth-graders Mark Gross, Julia Davis and Nathaniel Illig paint areas of a mural that will hang permanently on a building in Harrisburg. (Laura Breon / Erie Times-News)
UNION CITY -- A paint-by-numbers project is adding up to a big deal for some talented student-artists in the Union City School District.
Five fifth-graders at Union City Elementary School and students in the Art Club at the middle-high school were chosen to help paint a 20-by-25 foot mural that will be on permanent display at the entrance to the state Department of Education building in Harrisburg.
Only 22 school districts in the state were chosen to participate in the project, which is partially sponsored by the Department of Education.
"These students are really honored to be involved with this," said elementary teacher Mary Elizabeth Meier, who selected the fifth-graders for the project.
Using the paint-by-numbers system, each participating school painted a 5-by-5-foot piece of fabric that contained a specific design for the mural's theme of "Inspiring Students to Become Productive Life-Long Learners."
The completed sections will be installed on a wall outside the Department of Education's main entrance at 333 Market St. in Harrisburg.
Designed by artist Cesar Viveros, the mural will show students in educational settings along with extracurricular activities such as basketball. It will be unveiled Nov. 3.
The two Union City schools completed panels 1A and 2A that will make up the bottom left-hand corner of the mural.
Last week, fifth-grader Katie Mangol happily painted in the "7's."
"There's a lot of little things, but I'm going to do the bigger spots there because it's so much easier," Katie said.
Mangol, Mark Gross, Kayti Tuplovich, Nathaniel Illig and Ben Luce were the fifth-graders chosen by Meier.
Meier and Kris Fontes, an art instructor at Union City Middle/High School, are board members for the Pennsylvania Art Education Association. When PAEA mentioned the project, member schools were encouraged to volunteer to join in.
The project is a combined effort of the Department of Education, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program, PAEA and PSEA. Fulton Bank and M&T Bank, owners of the building wall that will be decorated, gave permission for the project.
Teachers trained with Viveros in July in Philadelphia. Viveros drew the mural on the material, numbered the areas to be painted, coordinated the colors to the numbers and mailed the project to each school.
The schools received the paint codes, paints, brushes and imprinted material and participated in the painting during "Mural Madness Week."
Meier and Fontes traveled to the PAEA annual conference Oct. 21-23 in State College and delivered Union City's two completed mural sections.
Much to the dismay of the students, they also returned the paints and brushes. Students loved working with the high-quality acrylic paint and the quality brushes, Meier said.
"The kids didn't want to send the paints back," Meier said. "And the artist's work is so interesting. He doesn't use colors that represent reality. We think the palette is just so beautiful."
Students gave up lunches and recesses to paint, Kayti said. "That shows how dedicated we are."
Classmates also envied them.
"Kids were saying, 'Oh, man. I wish I could do that,'" Illig said.
"That's because it's a blast working on this," Ben said.
Students will not be able to attend the mural's unveiling in faraway Harrisburg.
"We will see photos and videos of the finished work and the ceremony," Meier said.
That excites the students.
"We can take our kids there and tell them, 'We painted that when we were about your age,'"Katie said.
"Yep, it will hang there forever," Kayti said.
LAURA BREON, can be reached at 870-1837 or by e-mail.