Joplin - Drawing Workshops With Kids

Drawing with kids is illuminating. Kids, up to a certain age, draw the way grown-ups sing in the shower - full-force with heart and emotion and with little concern for how they sound to others. This is especially true when you give them just enough of a prompt to get their wheels turning and then get out of the way.

As a part of our design process for the mural, we spent nearly a week talking and working with kids on drawings about their idea of 'home.' Over the course of eight sessions, we worked with more than two-hundred young people from the Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, and Spiva Summer Art Program. The drawings they have made are remarkable - remarkable for their beauty and their honesty, and remarkable especially for the way they examine and illustrate the joy and sorrow of living in a time of confusion and contradiction, on one hand, and unparalleled community spirit on the other.

Below are some of their drawings which were made collaboratively, in groups of three, in response to the following cues:

• Imagine that all the people, animals, buildings, and bicycles from here dreamed a dream together for Joplin.

• Make magical incredible, creature-machines - part plant, part animal, part person, and part make believe that work together to create the Joplin you would like to see.

• Design a video game that takes players on an adventure through what makes your home town unique.

• Design a website for young people who have never visited Joplin, that shows them all of the things that you think kids would be interested in or need to know about where you live.

As artworks in their own right - capturing the beauty and in some cases tragedy witnessed by Joplin's young people at this unique moment in history - these drawings deserve to be seen by a wider audience.  We will be showing many of them as a part of the August Third Thursday event. Check back here for details.

Thanks to Kyle, Josie, Nicholas and Amber for helping to choreograph these sessions.

Joplin - Our Blank Canvas

Exciting news. We have a wall for our mural!
Thanks to the generosity of Tom Jensen and all the great folks at Dixie Printing, 1418 S. Main, we will be painting the large south facing wall on the northwest corner of 15th and Main.

And more good news, we also found a great space for our design studio only a few blocks away from the wall. It's located right across the street from the newly restored Gryphon Building at 1038 Main Street. You can't miss it. It's the one-story building covered with bright red metal siding next door to what looks to be an old gas station. The design studio is where we will hold most of our Design Team meetings,  and where we will make all of the preparatory drawings and color studies for the mural and other art works before they are installed on-site..

Joplin - Secret Mission

Few people are aware, but the team here in Joplin, under the guise of working on a mural, is actually on a very secret and important mission - Terrapin Rescue and Relocation. It began last year when, while wandering the back streets of Tonakawa, Oklahoma, Nicholas stumbled across a large, angry, and disoriented snapping turtle trying to cross four lanes of traffic that interrupted its drainage ditch habitat.

After a short period of getting acquainted, Nicholas was able to grab the angry one by the tail and take it safely out of harms way. Then, just a few days after this, Amber had to stop her car on the interstate to rescue another snapper, this one just a babe no bigger than a silver dollar, but feisty nonetheless.

Which brings us to this morning when, as I went out to get baked goods,  I noticed ahead of me the telltale shape of stranded turtle on the asphalt.

Forgetting  the donuts, I pulled over onto the shoulder and went into rescue mode, guiding the large red-eared slider into a temporary carriage. Our guess is that his or her source of water had dried up under the heat dome we've been living with, and felt the need to cross Lone Elm Road in search of a new and more hospitable home.

I sent a text ahead to Nicholas and Amber, who, understanding that time was of the essence, met me in the driveway, examined the patient, and then hopped in the car. A couple miles north of home we found access to a beautiful little gurgling creek. Perfect. Nicholas, being the expert, did the honors of releasing our friend into its new environs. Mission accomplished. Now...the mural.

Joplin - Introducing the Mural Team

As I often say in my presentation, community-based public art projects like this one are similar in many ways to community theater in that it takes many people and many skills to get to opening night, or in our case to the mural unveiling. Among the countless people who are participating and supporting the Joplin project are a group of professional artists instrumental to its success. Here are some brief introductions.

Amber Hansen, Mural Assistant
Amber, originally from Iowa,  has an MFA from the University of Kansas and is currently the Artist-in-Residence for the KU Art Department. Ms. Hansen is also a talented musician currently playing throughout the Midwest with her band "Your Mom's Best Friend".

Amber Hansen (and Nicholas Ward)

Kyle McKenzie, local Mural Apprentice
Kyle, who lives nearby in Webb City, teaches in the art departments at both Pittsburg State University and Missouri Southern State University. Kyle got his MFA from the University of Arkansas and shows his work throughout the region. Check out his website at www.kylejmckenzie.com

Kyle McKenzie

Josie Mai, Education Outreach Coordinator
Josie is an Associate Professor of Art and Art Education at Missouri Southern State University. She has an extensive background working with communities from Kenya to Kansas City. She received her MFA from Parsons School of Design in New York City. Learn more about her work at www.josiemai.com

Josie Mai

Nicholas Ward, Filmmaker
Nicholas is the co-director and principle cinematographer of a documentary in production about a six-state community mural project, which Joplin is a part of, supported by the Mid-America Arts Alliance. He received his MFA from the University of Kansas and recently returned from an artist residency at the Bemis Center in Omaha, Nebraska.

Nicholas Ward

Ashley Laird, 2nd Mural Assistant
Ashley is a muralist based in Topeka, Kansas where she is currently completing a commission for the Great Mural Wall titled "Reanimating the Arts in Topeka" which focuses on the history and vitality of Topeka's arts community. Ashley recently received her BFA from Washburn University in Topeka and will be joining the Joplin project in August.

Ashley Laird

Joplin - Beginning the Process

After a whirlwind week of meeting folks and giving presentations, I finally feel like I'm getting my bearings here in Joplin. Thanks to all the generous people who have made us feel welcome.

The presentation I've been giving starts with a super-condensed ten-minute art history lesson that begins with the Mona Lisa and then quickly  moves through the development of murals from cave paintings in France to community-based murals in Chicago.

The "Mona Lisa" at the Louvre in France

Cave paintings in Lascaux, France

"Where Are You Coming From? Where Are You Going?" by Olivia Gude

With that as a starting point, and after a little little  background about my work and past avocations as a superhero and aspiring Chicago Cubs pitcher,  I ask "What do you think?" and "What can you imagine in your minds eye for our wall?" It usually spurs an open ended conversation, actually more like a speakeasy where everyone gets to have their say without criticism or interruption. And it's then, when we begin to project our memories and dreams into a shared space, that the design process actually begins.

Community meeting at Spiva Center for the Arts

It's amazing to me how with a little prompting and a serious purpose, people will engage themselves so fully in this difficult task. Especially here in Joplin where the challenges are so great and the troublesome memories so fresh. Witnessing these conversations reminds me how much it seems we need and want to talk to each other, share our stories, and examine experiences in life that perplex and amaze us. And doing this in the service of creating a community artwork, as opposed to meeting at city hall to debate a controversial development project, for example, appears to help humanize and focus the way we talk to each other.

"Joplin at the Turn of the Century" by Thomas Hart Benton

Starting a new mural project in an unfamiliar town, one of the first things I do is to find all the other murals that are already there. I go looking out of curiosity, but also because it can be really helpful to see how other artists have told Joplin's stories through murals as we begin ours. And in Joplin there is a unique and wonderful pair of murals no one should miss. They are the grandfather and grandson pairing of murals by Thomas Hart Benton and his grandson Anthony Benton Gude installed at Joplin's City Hall. And as an added bonus, there is a fabulous display of the preparatory drawings, research materials, and correspondence associated with Thomas Hart Benton's mural. Anyone interested in the process of creating public art should go visit this unique installation on the first floor mezzanine at city hall.

Joplin, Missouri

Nearly a year ago while finishing The Imagineers mural in Newton, Kansas, we were visited by a small contingent of artists and arts advocates from Joplin, Missouri. Sharon Beshore, her husband Lance, and artist Jorge Leyva made the trip to discuss the possibility of bringing the Mid- America Arts Alliance Mural Project to Joplin the following summer. Nine months of planning, grant writing, and fundraising later and we are here engaged in a project that has taken on dramatic new significance since Joplin was hit by a massive tornado on May 22nd.

In the days following the tornado, plans for the mural project were unsure. Would our Joplin hosts still want to carry it forward? If so, what role could art play as the community worked to recover, restore, and rebuild? And, how would these new circumstances impact the content and type of art we would make? To help answer these questions, Nicholas, Amber, and I traveled to Joplin in early June. There we met at the Spiva Center for the Arts with artists, arts advocates and others who were interested in discussing the purpose and potential  of community-based art in the face of great challenges. The two meetings  were filled with honest thoughtful dialogue about the capacity of art to help in healing and recovery in times of difficulty.  And in the end, those who attended the meetings expressed overwhelming support for doing the mural and possibly a series of temporary art works located in areas affected by the tornado. The project would go forward, there was no doubt.

We arrived in Joplin to begin in earnest on July 11th. Venturing out from our new home base (the world's most wonderful basement apartment kindly opened to us by our hosts the Beshores), we began  by driving south through downtown to view some impromptu murals that had been painted as signs of hope and encouragement in response to the tornado.

Painted by A.J. Alejandro and Jim Belgere at 20th and Main

Near 24th and Main

1910 South Main Street

Signs of Hope

June 2, 2011

Here are some thoughts about the importance of our community-art project as a part of recovery in Joplin. Our project has always been centered around the opportunity for community driven art to inspire, remember, and envision. As Joplin begins its long process of recovery, our project and how it can engage the community, may be more relevant and useful, pertinent and powerful than we could have imagined.

Although our primary focus has been the creation of one large mural downtown, the current needs of residents and neighborhoods may lead us to making a series of smaller, perhaps more temporary pieces, that give support and inspire residents as they work together to recover and rebuild. We could call these smaller works placed around town “Signs of Hope.” 

These Signs of Hope would be in addition to a larger mural, on an existing wall or on panels, that would gather together expressions for Joplin’s recovery as expressed in our community workshops held at the Spiva and around town. This larger mural would be a place of beauty and memory where residents young and old could view the mural and also add their personal wishes, thoughts, and ideas in the form of drawings, poetry, photos, etc. These collected images and writings would be documented and possibly printed in a book and/or published on a website dedicated to our project. And as we work together to create these artworks, Nicholas and Amber will be filming the process. Their film will be a way for Joplin residents, and people in other communities facing tragedy, to understand the efforts of local people to cope and rebuild and how Art was integral to that process.

The process of creating both the larger mural and Signs of Hope will give Joplin residents an outlet and a means for engaging with their experiences, memories, and hopes that can help in healing.

Art gives voice to experiences that are difficult to express in words

Art helps us cope with the perplexity of tragedy

Art asks questions

Art offers solutions

Art can inspire and give strength

Art can recapture the beauty and memory of what has been lost

Art prompts recovery by visualizing what can be

Art gives form to memory

Art is a means of expression to deal with conflicting feelings of frustration, anger, hope, and resilience

Art gives consolation

Art is a process open to all

Newton - "The Imagineers"

Thanks again to Matt, Erika, Nick, and all the folks in Newton and North Newton for their support in seeing "The Imagineers" come to life. Below are images of the completed mural. Enjoy.



















photo by Jim Wimmer

Newton - Mural Celebration

It was a fabulous day. The weather, beautiful. The turnout, over 200. And the spirit, including a sweet dance performance accompanied by live music, just heartwarming. Many people spoke about the project including Barb Burns, Rachel Epp Buller, Erika Nelson, Joe Loganbill, and Bethel College President Perry White. You can read some of their comments in the Newton Kansan article published today.


Here are some of my comments from the program handed out at the celebration:

Approaching the mural, one sees a group of people around a table engaged in the process of building, playing, restoring, and imagining. These figures are symbolic of the Newton/ North Newton community. They are not based on particular individuals so much as they are composites of the many and varied peoples of the area. This group. This family. This community. They have chosen to address the important questions of their town's identity, history, and future, and they are actively working to better understand who they are and what they wish to become. So, this mural is not so much a literal transcribing of history or an enumeration of the individuals and architecture already known, as it is an evocation of an idea or a visual poem that attempts to capture the spirit of an energized and optimistic community choosing to become a better place for all of its citizens.


Dance performance by the Newton Dance Project choreographed by Sara Dick.


Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this such a great project. Now, all I've got to do is varnish that darn thing in the morning and we can call it good.

Please Join Us
to Celebrate the Completion of

The Imagineers

Sunday, September 19th
4 pm

3rd & Main
(just south of the train depot)

Newton, Kansas

Newton - Painting

Transferring the design is really not as hard as it looks, well at least not since digital projectors have been around. To go from 30 x 80 inches to 30 x 80 feet, we took a photo of our line drawing, tinkered with it (well Matt and Erika tinkered with it) a bit in photoshop, and then projected it onto the wall to the delight of insects and makers of giant shadows.

It's the morning after the free wheeling transfer party when things appear a little shakier. Looking at what we had copied, the lines were way less precise than we thought the night before. In some places it was hard to tell a nose from a thumb or a suitcase handle from a bridge... But, that's normal. Like humming a few bars of a new song, without lyrics or instruments, it can be hard to imagine the completed painting when all that's there are the rough outlines of the design.

Blocking in big areas of color helps to clarify the basic elements of the design quickly. It also establishes the mural's value structure and color harmony from which the rest of the painting will be developed. And blocking in these big shapes is relatively easy so it's a great time to have what we call "community paint days." Newton, it seems, was more than ready to get their brushes to the wall, because on our first community paint day over eighty people showed up to get their licks in. And that was followed the next day by over a hundred. To date, over two hundred and fifty people have helped paint on Newton's new mural.



While passersby and volunteers work below, we painted from scissor lifts above. In these early stages of painting, I spend my time mixing and mixing and mixing paint. Mixing the right amount (so you don't have to re-mix and re-mix) of the right color at the right value takes practice, and it's easy to mis-mix and end up with a gallon of unusable muck.
So, like a bartender, I stand behind the paint table handing out concoctions such as burnt sienna cooled with a medium violet tint or chromium green dirtied with cadmium orange. And in a transformation that seems to happen overnight, the white of the wall gives way to color.

After the mural has been completely filled in with one layer of color, it's time to project the details of the design on top of the existing painting. More fun can be had with shadows, since now they have images to interact with as Matt demonstrates below.

From here on out, the areas to paint are smaller, the decisions about color and value tougher to make, and the chances of making things look really weird much much greater. " Why does that girl have an eye in her nose?", I heard once. But, this is also the stage when the painting starts to come into its own and I usually breathe a sigh of relief knowing it's probably going to look pretty cool.