Barbara Lavalee sketches an outline for the mural painted for the Girdwood Community Playground.
Children and parents paint alongside Alaska artist Barbara Lavalle to create a mural for the Girdwood Community playground.
photos by Jeanne Sherman
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Barbara Lavalee sketches an outline for the mural painted for the Girdwood Community Playground. |
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Children and parents paint alongside Alaska artist Barbara Lavalle to create a mural for the Girdwood Community playground. photos by Jeanne Sherman |
By Jeannie Sherman
Special to the Turnagain Times
The Second Annual Gird-wood Center for the Visual Arts Community Mural Painting Day took place on Saturday, June 2, at the mural site next to the playground. Former Girdwood resident and renowned Alaskan artist Barbara Lavallee was the guest artist for this well attended community event. Barbara sketched out her ideas, which consisted of scenes that are typical of the Girdwood valley, on the three panels of the mural. The first scene depicts the ski area, the second Alaskan animals and the third panel is reminiscent of Girdwood people and their pets.
Promptly at 10 a.m., the Girdwood community arrived to put their artistic talents to work on the mural.
At times, the crowd was so large that not everyone could paint at one time. Children were standing on milk crates to reach the upper areas of the mural and the adults and Barbara painted right alongside the children. Everyone that painted on the mural left their “footprint” and signature on the mural. The footprints were made by making a fist and brushing paint on the part of the fist near the little finger, then pressing the fist on to the mural. Toes for the “feet” were made by dipping fingers into paint and pressing them on the mural. There were even a few babies that had their feet painted and pressed on the mural.
Many people contributed to the event. Dave and Lori Sears prepared the mural surface for painting, erecting the tents over the mural site (ensuring a sunny day for the event), applying a final coat of urethane sealer on the mural and dismantling the tents. Jeanne Rosauer, Suzanne Farley, Gena Beam, Joan Lower and Jody Liddicoat, mixed and poured paint, helping with clean up. Lynn McNamar must be credited with taking many wonderful photographs of the process.
Suzanne and Spike Farley, owners of Chair 5, provided coffee and hot drinks that were very much appreciated on a cool morning. Diana Livingston, Ron Burson, Glacier City Radio and the Turnagain Times assisted in getting the word out. Four Valleys Community School, Thalia Wilkinson with Girdwood Fine Arts Camp, Chris with Chris’s Custom Painting and Peanuts Norwood, donated paints and brushes, and of course the GCVA and artist Barbara Lavallee offered the artistic guidance necessary to create the mural.
Since this is the Second Annual Community Mural Painting Day, you may wonder who was the behind the creation of the mural. Well, we all have Nikki Navarrete, a former GCVA Board Member, to thank. Nikki was volunteering on the construction of the community playground last year and had the opportunity to pursue the mural idea for the Girdwood Center for the Visual Arts. Nikki asked the playground committee if GCVA could build the mural in conjunction with the playground plans. The Play-ground Committee approved and plans were submitted to the planning agency for the mural along with the playground plans. Tom Swanson dug the post holes and GCVA purchased all of the building supplies, the exception that the Playground Committee donated the Trex, (a highly-durable, very expensive, building material for the painting surface) and Alisdair Watson donated his time to build it. Last year Four Valleys Community School donated their paint from the Artist in Residence Project for the mural and paint was also donated by various other people around town.
The concept behind the creation of a community mural is that GCVA should be engaged in many ways within the community and help integrate the various community organizations together though art. Each year one side of the community mural will be redesigned and the community will come together for a painting day.
Nikki is now living in Roswell, New Mexico, with husband Chris and their son, Gavin. In a recent e-mail she wrote: “This (the community mural) is one of the things I’m most proud of having initiated. You know, the thing you envision among the awesome possibilities of volunteering for an organization like GCVA and, after three and a half years and many other projects, I got the reward of making it come true. I thank you and everyone helping you for taking it and building it out for the community and municipality to see.”
Thank you, Nikki, for having the vision to make the GCVA Girdwood Community Mural a reality! And thank you to everyone that came out for a fun day of painting. See you next year.
Jeannie Sherman is a Board Member at Large with the Girdwood Center for the Visual Arts.
Jeannie Sherman/ GCVA