HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — The energy is contagious inside Taylor Baker-Neal’s art classes at Douglas S. Freeman High School. Her students are getting ready to take their talent public.
“The idea of leaving your mark as you come through Richmond is pervasive,” says Senior Olivia Yang. “And this is a way for high school students to do that.”
The teens are teaming up with professional artists Matt Lively and Hamilton Glass. They are putting their own, unique spins on a photo of the James River. It has been divided into 216 individual pieces to give every Freeman art student a hand in the project.
“Everyone has their own style, so it’s not just going to be just one uniform mural,” explains Junior Gray Gibson. “It’s going to be different and represent all the art classes and all the art students.”
Adds Glass, “Two hundred sixteen minds are a lot more than just what you would come up with yourself, so it’s great to see the students doing things differently than what you would do.”
The finished product, a 40′ x 12′ mural, will go up on the first floor at Regency Square Mall. The students’ friends, family and neighbors can enjoy it for years to come.
“It turns into a whole community project, like everybody has a piece in it, a stake in it, in the whole image,” describes Lively.
For the students, no matter where their lives take them, to college and beyond, they will leave behind their work and an important message.
“It’s a unifier,” Glass says about the mural. “It’s something that the community can be a part of to actually bring them together.”
The public art is going up at Regency Square as part of the mall’s fortieth anniversary celebration. It is scheduled to be unveiled around Thanksgiving, just in time for the busy holiday shopping season.
