Rocky River, Ohio-- A small group of Rocky River teens participated in a three day mural making project for the Rocky River library sponsored by the Progressive Arts Alliance, a non-profit that has a deep commitment to arts education. Progressive Arts Alliance has served over 20,000 students in schools, community centers, libraries, and other community spaces in the greater Cleveland area. Progressive Arts Alliance envisions a community where all young people have access to high quality arts learning opportunities that ignite their passion, open their minds, inspire them to create, and empower them to pursue their own successful futures. PAA collaborates with community, regional and national partners to introduce programming opportunities that address a range of educational needs.
The mural was produced collaboratively by a group of eleven teenagers ranging from 7th grade to 11th grade, and was facilitated by Dina Hoeynck, an artist educator from Progressive Arts Alliance and Megan Alabaugh, teen librarian at Rocky River library. Hoeynck taught the teens the basic principles of design and mural-making to create a mural that will be installed in a yet to be determined space in the library. This program was initiated for students interested in learning about visual arts and working as a team to create a large-scale artwork.
The mural was designed and painted by the teens and Hoeynck only advised on
Hoeynck brainstormed different ideas with the teens to get a starting point for how they were going to paint the mural. Once they complied a list of images they wanted to use they were able to look up reference images and print them up as a guideline for their drawings. The teens used iPads available at the library to do their research. Nicholas Cronin, the library's director wanted the mural to blend both the old and the new. That was the general guidelines of the mural. Cronin wanted the ambience to be a mix of traditional and modern, something that he thinks the Rocky River library is, a blend of traditional on the outside with all of the modern technology a library has to offer on the inside.
The mural consists of three panels. The first panel represents the past by illustrating the progression from oral history through early written languages to the invention of the printing press. The second panel illustrates where the modern world is today from using the Dewey decimal system to having a library card, reading bound books and e-readers. The final panel is a speculative futuristic panel that predicts one possible future evolution of information. The illustration depicts a person using goggles, holographs and a Skype type of interactive web page.
When viewed together these panels tell the story of Rocky River Public library's commitment to bridging tradition with technology. The teens said that they enjoyed working on the mural collaboratively and are excited to see their art displayed in the library. They have enjoyed many of the programs the library has to offer and were excited to be a part of this project. Though some of the teens were interested in art and had some previous art experience, others did not but indicated they would look into what their school had to offer because they enjoyed this project so much.