Ti High Art Club to paint mural this summer

TICONDEROGA | If you notice 20 or so young artists on Wicker Street this coming July, busy at work with paint in their hands, don't be afraid to beep and wave in encouragement. This summer, the Ticonderoga Junior-Senior High School Art Club will be getting the chance of a lifetime thanks to North Country Rural Development Coalition's (NRDC) brand-new initiative, "Public Art in the Classroom." And that public art will result in a new mural created entirely by Ti students, complete with professional artist assistance during the installation. "My hope is that it will go well (and I think it will), and if so, we will continue to do something similar annually," shared Nicole Justice Green, NRDC President & CEO. The student mural will take place in two phases, with Phase One happening May 15-18, when mural artist Shawn Dunwoody will travel from Syracuse (where he runs a student art program) to town for a school assembly and begin mural design for the site with the Art Club. Dunwoody will return again July 10-18, and will assist students in every aspect of the mural's creation, from conception to the final brush stroke. "Shawn works with Justin Suarez, who did the falcon mural last year," Green explained. "His strength is public engagement with our students. Shawn will be there to guide the kids through the visioning process and help them technically install a higher quality mural, and really give them those on-the-ground skills to do this themselves with his help." The subject matter the mural will depict will be determined by the Art Club during Phase One in May. There are roughly 20 students currently in the club, ranging from grades seven through 12, all at varying levels of artistic talent based on their respective ages. The student mural will replace the mural that currently resides on the wall along the roadway in front of the current medical campus (formerly known as Moses Ludington Hospital) on Wicker Street. That mural, painted by Ti High art teacher Britney Shaw and Maura Jebb a handful of years back, has served its purpose of brightening up the roadway for passersby, but Shaw is excited for its refresh. And even sweeter is the fact that it will be her students and the Art Club that she surprises that will tackle giving the concrete canvas new life. "This is all I have heard about from my students since the mural festival last year," Shaw said. "NRDC is giving us the opportunity to work with a professional muralist. This is an opportunity that we would not have without them and their efforts. I'm excited for my students to have their artwork displayed for the community to see how talented they are." Though it is a stand-alone project, timing of the student mural will correspond with the upcoming Walls Between Waters Mural Festival II happening this summer in downtown Ticonderoga. "The goal was to do another six murals this year," Green explained. "We will be doing three more in Ticonderoga with Walls Between Waters, then doing one in Jay, so that will be four county-wide that are going up that first week of June, and another two murals by Shawn will be forthcoming." Green said Walls Between Waters will again offer the popular apprentice program, open to all local and regional students, but she wanted the Public Art in the Classroom mural to be fully student-driven and in the classroom. "This is a way for students in the club who are very serious in art to have guaranteed participation and involvement in this program," she said. NRDC has a four-pillar mission, and one of those pillars is community development. For Green, at the heart of that upward progression are the children. Speaking from her own experience as a disadvantaged youth and now as a mother of five children, Green said children are the future, and any revitalization work must have the next generation's best interest in mind. "The effects or benefits or disadvantages are borne by the next generation, and you cannot be doing development and grant work in a vacuum of just your own experience," she remarked. "You have to have this multi-generation view of what you are doing, and it is an honor and it is a privilege to be able to do this for our youth." For NRDC, it is a responsibility that is not taken lightly. And who knows what young artist in the school system may feel the artistic spark that will define their future career choice, thanks to "Public Art in the Classroom." The more opportunities that kids are afforded, Green feels, the better off the community at large will be. "I want to give our youth as many positive skill-set affirming experiences that they can possibly get in our community so they are good whole and healthy individuals and their lives are blessed by these experiences, whether or not they chose to stay here as adults," she remarked. "Public Art in the Classroom" is just one of numerous youth-targeted initiatives by NRDC, who often donates quietly and in the background to most of the local school groups and youth organizations. So much so, in fact, Green said the organization has donated between $70,000 and $80,000 towards those causes in the last three years. "We consistently sponsor the middle and high school theater programs, the high school music program, and the art program for their trips, Quiz Bowl, yearbook, NHS, and helped fund the new playground," Green revealed. "We also donate to the Little League and sports teams that ask us." This past October, during its first annual Fireside FolkFest, NRDC brought to town band headliner The National Parks, who spent three class periods with Mike Iturrino's music students, with a very successful singer/songwriter workshop. This June, during Walls Between Waters II, that same thing will happen once more with the well-known band The Strumbellas. "That will continue as we do these large-scale performances," Green said. "Eventually, when we get into the Adirondack Performing Arts Center, we will really dig down deep with that second-floor space for our community and for our youth." Green envisions student workshops and all different art genres being brought into the second-floor space, and also having a permanent home for the Ticonderoga Festival Guild's children's programming, and the high school theater program taking advantage of a dedicated place for art enrichment. Continued and new partnerships with NRDC and area youth programs will work in tandem, supporting the good work that is already being done in the community. Though "Public Art in the Classroom" may not necessarily be a mural every year and may explore other forms of artistic expression, Green is firm that NRDC will always invest in the area's youth. "Whether it be us having a singer/songwriter visit or artists talk when we bring these world-class professionals into our community, we are engaging our youth and giving them this very unique, once-in-a-lifetime exposure that fulfills all the goals of community development well," expressed Green. "I think it is a really exciting and inspiring thing for our local students."

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Ti High Art Club to paint mural this summer

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