Joplin - Creating the Mural Design Part I

Fashioning together a mural design from the hundreds of images and ideas generated is a daunting task. And there is always an inclination to try include everything and create a kind of patchwork mural. We challenged ourselves to take things a step further and create something more integrated and dynamic that reflected our shared experience in a beautiful and interesting way, while incorporating the work of a large and diverse group of participants.

To do this we first needed a theme, a general visual and conceptual idea, to work from. As a group, the design team considered:

• The significance of this moment in Joplin's history.

• The input we had received from community meetings and drawing workshops.

• Where the mural was going to be located.

• Who the audiences viewing the mural would be.

• What we wanted to communicate.

From these considerations, a few key ideas kept coming up. They were transition, vision, metamorphosis, and revitalization (including the myth of the Phoenix). There was also a strong feeling expressed for using the drawings that young people created as a significant part of the mural. In the studio, the design team took these ideas and began to form images that symbolized a kind of visionary metamorphosis, while Amber, Kyle and I searched through all of the kids drawings to find ones that seemed to best capture the moment.

Here are some of the design team drawings that used visual icons like trees and  butterflies as vessels to be filled with ideas about transformation and revitalization.

And here a few of the drawings kids made that we chose to use parts of in our design.

Then I had an idea... What if the kids drawings were somehow brought to life by something symbolizing a beautiful transformation - like a butterfly.  It felt right and so I quickly did this mock-up where a butterfly takes flight from one of the their drawings.

The next piece of the design puzzle came from one of my favorite poets and Joplin native son Langston Hughes. We had been looking for poetry to enhance the mural's developing story when Sharon, one of our design team members, brought in the poem "In Time of Silver Rain" by Hughes -

In time of silver rain
The earth
Puts forth new life again,
Green grasses grow
And flowers lift their heads,
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads
      Of life,
      of life,
      of life!
In time of silver rain
The butterflies
Lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,
And trees put forth
New leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing, too,
In time of silver rain
      When spring
      And life
      Are new.

Amazing. The poem's tone and imagery seemed too fit perfectly with the direction our design was taking. All we had to do was figure out how to bring together all these sources - the kid's drawings, the design team's work, my ideas about the butterfly, and the poetry - into something that looked and felt like a short (picture) story.

The mural design we created from this material is just one of the countless designs that could have been made, and it couldn't possibly include all of the incredible images that were created as part of the process. The good thing is that Joplin has many other walls calling out for a murals - hint, hint.

Joplin’s public mural holds message of hope, pride 

By Josh Letner   Joplin Globe Staff Writer

The Joplin Globe Mon Aug 29, 2011, 09:00 AM CDT

JOPLIN, Mo. — After making a preliminary trip to Joplin last December, artist Dave Loewenstein was excited about the prospect of creating a community mural. But after the May 22 tornado destroyed a third of the city, Loewenstein said, he wasn’t sure how much enthusiasm remained for the mural project. “Things changed here quite a bit,” he said over the weekend. “We weren’t sure exactly how that was going to change what we were going to do, but we came down in early June and met with some folks, and they said, ‘We want to do this more now than ever after what’s happened.’”

Philip Ledbetter, an employee of St. John’s Mercy, contributes to Joplin’s public mural on Saturday at 15th and Main streets. A wall of the Dixie Printing building is the showcase for the project. GLOBE/BILL STEWART

Loewenstein is the lead muralist for the Community Mural Project, a community-based project that seeks to develop high quality works of art through a collaboration driven by local people. Last year, Loewenstein completed murals in Tonkawa, Okla., and Newton, Kan., as part of the project. Joplin is the latest stop on a six-state mural project.

WALL CANVAS
The Joplin mural’s canvas is an exterior wall of the Dixie Printing building at 15th and Main streets. An army of artists took up brushes Saturday and Sunday, completing the mural portion that could be reached from the ground. The mural crew, over the next several days, will finish the upper portion while standing on scaffolding.

After arriving in Joplin, Loewenstein’s team collaborated with more than 200 area children and about 15 local artists and other residents to come up with the theme for the community mural. Although the organizers never intended to feature tornado-related images in the project, Loewenstein said, the storm was a recurring theme in the children’s drawings. “What we discovered when we worked with the kids at the Boys & Girls Club, even though we never mentioned the tornado once, many of them, because they lived through it, were drawing about it,” he said. “So we included some of the challenging imagery that they made in a portion of the mural to show how Joplin has been challenged with a lot of things recently.”

The mural is a depiction of the Joplin community. If viewed from left to right, it begins with historical images of a miner and of George Washington Carver. Next is a depiction of a student at a table drawing a design, and near the center are chaotic images of the tornado’s destruction. Loewenstein said the message is one of hope and pride. “The last part of the mural shows the enormous community and nationwide response to what happened, and a real vision for the future,” he said.

Assistant muralist Amber Hansen said it is important for people to realize that art is not only about a “lone artist” toiling in solitude to create a masterpiece that is purchased by a wealthy buyer for his personal collection. “That’s not the full potential of what art can do,” she said. “Art can bring together a community. It’s an outlet for sharing your feelings and your experiences, and the kids and the design team displayed that immediately for us.” She said it is important for the community to “beautify and not just clean up or pragmatically build.”

‘MORE BEAUTY’
Carissa Fisher, whose home on Arizona Avenue was destroyed by the tornado, dabbed green paint into the mortar between bricks Saturday as she said the mural project is a good way to show her children, her 3-year-old daughter in particular, that the community is rebuilding. “When we drive through town, it’s so horrific for her still, but every time she sees something that’s been rebuilt or a painting like this, it makes her feel so happy,” Fisher said. “It is important that everyone who was affected by it sees that not only is Joplin coming back, but it’s coming back with more beauty.”

Lacey Eagleshield, first-year art teacher at Joplin High School, said she encouraged all of her students to take part in the mural project. She said art can be a useful tool in helping children express their emotions about traumatic events. “It helps with the healing process,” she said. “If they’re not able to express in words how they’re feeling, it helps to draw it out. It’s kind of a therapeutic process.”

For Loewenstein, the project shows the power of art and the effect that it can have on a community. “Something that’s important to me is to show that art has a much higher purpose than we’re accustomed to,” he said. “It’s not just that thing in a museum, and it’s not just that thing that is on the refrigerator, although those things are fantastic. It can serve a real community purpose, and by doing this out here at this time, I think we’re making that case.”

Joplin Globe Article

Community mural to be painted on wall in Joplin

from the Joplin Globe
By Emily Younker  

  The Joplin Globe Tue Aug 23, 2011, 07:53 PM JOPLIN, Mo. — If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at public art, this weekend will be your chance.

Artist Dave Loewenstein welcomes visitors recently to an exhibit of children’s 

drawings at the Gryphon Building at 10th and Main.

Everyone — artist or not — may help turn a blank wall at the corner of 15th and Main streets into a mural honoring the city of Joplin, said Sharon Beshore, vice chairwoman of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce’s Cultural Affairs Committee  “It’s something that’s very visible to the public,” she said. “This is hopefully the first of community-based murals (in Joplin). ” Dave Loewenstein, the project’s lead muralist, said it is important for Joplin residents to have this opportunity. In a blog for the project, the Lawrence, Kan., artist wrote that creating the mural could give people “an outlet” and could help in the healing after the May 22 tornado.

‘INSPIRE, REMEMBER, ENVISION’
“Our project has always been centered around the opportunity for community-driven art to inspire, remember and envision,” he wrote. “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. ”The mural will be painted along the south wall of Dixie Printing, on the northwest corner of 15th and Main streets. Beshore said the committee had first scouted downtown locations for the mural before switching gears after the tornado. She said a centrally located mural could draw attention and spur interest in a section of Joplin that will need to be rebuilt. “We moved it to 15th and Main, which is halfway between the tornado area and the downtown, so it can kind of be what we call a gateway — a transition from one area into another area,” she said.

The design was created based on views from about 100 Joplin residents who attended a handful of recent meetings. More than 200 children from the Joplin Family Y, the Boys & Girls Club, and Spiva Center for the Arts also were consulted, Loewenstein said. “The drawings that the kids made were some of the most beautiful and insightful works we’ve seen during our whole visit here,” he said. “They have this ability to draw with a real kind of honesty, and they don’t self-edit the way that adults do. ”Loewenstein and a design team distilled those images and suggestions from the community meetings into the mural’s final design, which includes historical references as well as some tornado references. “It’s a visionary sort of image that is magical, I would say, in some ways and culminates in a very positive and hopeful future, I think, for folks who live here,” he said.

Beshore said the team did not want the mural to be a “tornado wall,” though she acknowledged that it was difficult to separate the storm from the design. “Of course, this is post-tornado, so you can’t just wash your mind of what happened,” she said. “Quite frankly, you can’t separate what’s happened from people’s ideas. If this (the art project) had happened a year ago, this would have been a completely different mural.”

‘WIDE-OPEN VIEW’
Tom Jensen, owner of Dixie Printing, said the mural likely will draw attention to the building, which faces a parking lot and is in a “wide-open view” for passers-by. “Primarily, it’s just anything that we can do to promote this town,” he said. The mural will be the second in Joplin through the Art in Public Places project, which falls under the chamber’s Cultural Affairs Committee. The first project brought a mural by Anthony Benton Gude, grandson of Thomas Hart Benton, to City Hall. It also will be the third mural regionally to be created with the support of the Mid-America Arts Alliance, which last year supported community murals in Newton, Kan., and Tonkawa, Okla.

“There’s a big push for public art — art that people can just enjoy in their everyday life,” Beshore said. “You don’t have to go to a gallery to see it; it’s just out there in the public domain.” If you go,
AS SPACE ALLOWS, the public may help paint Joplin’s new community mural between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the corner of 15th and Main streets.

"Called to Walls" the documentary

Help support the documentary by pledging on Kickstarter!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/calledtowalls/

Out of view of the high art world and the hip gallery scene comes this heartening story of unlikely partners in Middle American communities working together to reexamine their histories, celebrate what makes their towns unique, and imagine their futures in the form of monumental community murals. This film is part road movie, part inspirational small town drama, and part art documentary. Working in conjunction with Mid America Arts Alliance's "The Mural Project," this compelling story follows Kansas artist Dave Loewenstein, on a three-year journey around the heart of the US, helping to reignite a sense of civic pride and creative possibility in places often overlooked. "Called to Walls" is a thoughtful and uplifting film that leaves viewers not only admiring the serious work and good will of these artists, but also with an itch to go out and do it themselves.

Joplin - The Design Team

Making the transition from community meetings into design work means finally sinking our teeth into the big question - What of the countless interesting, memorable, and beautiful things suggested and drawn can we weave together to make a great mural?

So we know they really want to do it, the fifteen or so people who make up the design team select themselves.  They join Amber, Kyle, Josie, Nicholas and myself, to help distill and shape the input that's been given into a theme that resonates in a beautiful and meaningful way. 

At our first meeting held in our newly converted studio space, we asked the team to consider the all material we have collected, and suggestions we had heard,  and then imagine a sort of concrete poem that encapsulates the spirit of and vision for Joplin at this moment in time.

To do this, we made what I call 'word pictures.' Making a word picture is pretty straight forward. First you draw a large rectangle that has the basic proportions of the wall for the mural, then you fill that rectangle with words and phrases that refer to the imagery to be included in the design, with the size and position of these words and phrases written to correspond to their relative importance.

We worked on these for a while and then presented them to the group. The conversations that happen around these presentations are always some of the most compelling and fruitful. It seems that holding up an artwork you've made, no matter how modest, stimulates a person's capacity to articulate their intentions by allowing them to speak through the imagery they have created.

What we learned is that although people who live in the same town may share certain cultural and historical symbols, (In Joplin those would include mining, Route 66,  and the eagle mascot) their deeper sense of identity is much more personal and is built from first-hand experience. And whether it's kids or grown-ups, this is where the richest material for art is found - in those specific and personal examples of how we know, remember, and envision our home.

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