Bauer Family Resources Mural: "PLAY"

i went out and finished up the mural at Bauer Family Resources yesterday. all i had to do was add in some shadows to give a little bit of depth to the space. this ASAP class did really well. the process was the same for this class, as it has been for many previous classes. i get the kids talking about art, then i get them sketching, then we develop a plan out of their sketches and conversations. during one of the sketch sessions, one of the girls in the class had created all these little scenes of stick figures with kind of a manga-style look to their faces. so we turned them into stick emojis and had them doing things that they would do in the park (the wall sits behind a newly renovated neighborhood park). the stick figures were something i thought the class could handle installing on the wall in large scale. we produced a sketch for approval, got it approved and got to work. i had 12 kids in the class, so this piece went quite quickly. we got it complete in just 3 hours across 2 different class sessions.

it's always fun to paint in neighborhoods, because the people who live there tend to stop by and chat. everyone wants to know how, why and what you are doing to that wall. it is nearly always positive, save for a few random jerks that can holler from their car windows. but i love when people stop to talk. yesterday was no different. i had intended to get out there early and get the shadows down in most likely less than an hour, then get back to the studio to get some new work started. i ended up staying out there until almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon talking with people who came through the alley. it was great fun to learn about people's lives and the tangible impact the artwork has on their quality of life. positivity can change perceptions, even if under all the happy smiling emojis, there is a quite serious message about the intersection of tech use and childhood, which some will see, and some will not, the point though is to give everyone the opportunity to think for themselves about it.

the mural is entitled, 'play,' which one of the figures is writing in graf bubbles on the wall. the title plays off of the park across the alley, but also off of the idea of understanding 'play' in the context of today's tech driven existence. the word contrasts the idea of the idleness of smart phone with the tangible playground.