PLATTSBURGH — Two new murals inside the Ted K. Center are bright, bold brainteasers.
In the rush to get them painted and ready for last Thursday’s unveiling and reception, presenters Leigh Ryan and Michelle Gottschall didn’t have time to title the works created by many hands.
“Last year, we did a one-book, school-wide read of ‘The Wild Robot’ by Peter Brown,” Gottschall said. “As an extension of that program, we wrote a grant from the New York State Arts Council to do a mural here at the Ted K. Center because our Momot (Elementary) students come here after school.
“My colleague Leigh, who is the actual artist-in-residence here, we have a Superintendent’s Day in our school district. You have a program where you choose what kind of class you want to take, and she took a grant-writing class from Tracy Vicory-Rosenquest.
“She talked about all the different grants that were available and bringing arts into the North Country and into our schools. Leigh was like, ‘Hey, do you want to do this?’ So we got the grant.”
The project received $3,750, which was made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts.
“We anticipated to do it last summer, but things didn’t work out the way they were supposed to. So we were able to do it this winter. We started the third week in March, so it’s been a three-week project,” Gottschall said.
“So basically what we did is we took images from ‘The Wild Robot’ and also took images that they’re working on in art class like 3D and optical illusions. We were using the elements of art — line, design, shape — and put them together to develop a mural. Then they helped our artist Leigh.
“She drew all the lines and taped it. The kids, staff painted it. It was like a Ted K. community effort. Originally, we were going to do one mural but didn’t have enough space, so we cut it up and put it into two sections. It was great.”