I am a student taking Dragana’s mural painting course for the first time. The class consists of several return students and others like me that are just learning this exciting public art form.
The first three weeks consisted of research, sketching, and collaboration accompanied with Dragana’s insight to shape the second portion of the Andrews Avenue Memoir Mural. Everyone put in a lot of work researching as much information as we could find that would reflect memories from downtown Youngstown, Ohio. We wanted to show what might be important to people that grew up, worked, and played here. The YSU Art Department’s free-thinking creative environment is also present in our work.
The first day at the mural site we all got to work with internal motivation and excitement for the magnitude of the project we were embarking upon. Priming the wall is our first task. Plastic was spread, buckets tapped, and rollers went up as paint covered the walls at a grand pace. It was a hot end of summer day with our group of talented individuals laughing and performing our craft.
Now on the sixth week most of the design is outlined and a good bit of color is going up. You can tell that others enjoy the project by all the friendly honking and words of encouragement by the passers-by.