You're Invited to Dedicate the Mural at St. Joseph's

A portion of the mural, ©2012 Jennie Traill Schaeffer

 
On August 18th I put the finishing touches of varnish and officially signed the St. Joseph's mural. After a year and a half of work, my biggest project has been completed. Now, I'm excited to announce an official Mural Dedication which is set to take place on October 14th from 1 - 3pm at St. Joseph's Regional School in Newton. 

The school is located at 20 Jefferson Street, but the mural is accessed by alleys on Halsted and Jefferson Street to the rear of the school. St. Joseph's is putting together a HarvestFest to celebrate the mural. They will be hosting a family-friendly event with a bounce house, pumpkin decorating, face painting, music, and carnival games. 

I hope you'll join me in this very special day! Learn more about the event and the mural process in this Sunday's New Jersey Herald - St. Joseph School to dedicate mural at HarvestFest.

The Nuts and Bolts of the St. Joseph's Mural Commission

Detail of the Crucifixion Window in-progress at St. Joseph's Regional School

Murals have been on my mind. I was commissioned last April by St. Joseph's Regional School in Newton, NJ to complete a mural to complete a play-scape transformation project. My surface - a 40' x 15' cinder block wall pierced with windows. When I first viewed the walls, I thought wow, that is huge. I've never worked that large, let alone outside. Fear of the unknown crept in slowly and I fought back with a determination to successfully execute this project.

Philly Art, courtesy of muralarts.org

I spent a summer in college interning at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and was exposed to their very successful Mural Arts Program. Every corner you turn in Philly, a wall is elaborately finished with amazing images painted by artists. This was my opportunity to understand and work on a grand scale.

Part of my original design for the mural

I took the commission which has taken about a year to design. No, I have not worked on it every day for a year, but in juggling my other projects and teaching, it took a year to come up with an initial idea, and then go through the revision process. Last June I spent two sessions working with selected students in brainstorming ideas. I took some of their ideas. along with my own to present an initial design that incorporated both scripture and elements of the school day. The schema I came up with breaks the wall into a series of stained glass windows, turning the outside into a church-like environment, giving the feeling you are outside and inside a Gothic cathedral at the same time. Ultimately, the committee felt I needed to go purely in the religious direction, so I came up with an illustration depicting 9 bible verses selected by the priest of St. Jo's, Father Brian Sullivan. The windows start with Creation and end with the Resurrection / Ascension.

On the scaffolding for the first time!

Color studies for the mural, done in marker

At the end of March, my current design was approved and then I waited for the warm weather to return. I picked up two sets of 5' scaffolding with my parent liaison, Jessie Martin, and her 70 year old mother who lent us her pickup truck and instructed me on putting it together and scaling it! Truly humbling to watch Jessie's mother climb all over the scaffolding as if she had been born on it.

Montana Hardcore Paint Markers, image from DickBlick.com

Nativity and St. Joseph windows after completing the drawing at night.

I'm using a process that I researched thoroughly over the past year; projecting my image with an Art Prism and drawing the outlines with Montana Hardcore markers. This work required darkness for the image to successfully show on the wall so I spent about six, warm and dry weather evenings in April and May from 8:15 through 10 and 11pm drawing the design with a parent buddy, students, and my son and husband keeping me company. Numerous evenings Joel, my son, would cry because he had to go to bed and couldn't come to the mural. It was really special to have him see me work on this project and be so interested.

After my first painting session.

As of May 10th I finally began the painting. I'm using custom mixed acrylics special ordered from Golden Acrylics in New York state. They make amazing paints - this is my first time using them and I'm super impressed by the coverage, color, and texture of the paints. After I got into the project, I remembered learning about their use for mural work from my time at Pearl Paint. In about a week from ordering at Jerry's Artists' Outlet in West Orange, I had 5 gallons of artists acrylic. I'm using colors suggested by Marshall Okin at Jerry's - manganese blue, pyrole red, hansa yellow medium, bone black, and titanium white - all rated for permanence.The colors are really impressive on the wall.

Detail of Jesus from the Ascension / Resurrection Window

Ascension/Resurrection of Jesus Window, nearly complete as of 5/18

Crucifixion Window, started 5/19

I'm only working on the 2nd of the 9 windows and am hoping to complete any scaffolding work by the beginning of June. However, now that I see how long I am spending on each window, I probably have a good 70 hours worth of work ahead of me; which I'm fitting in around my retail hours at the gallery, my teaching schedule, and picking up my son from daycare. Whew! So if you'd like to follow my progress, become of fan of my Facebook page - that's where I'm posting daily updates. You're also more than welcome to stop by and watch me work.

Mural Progress - St. Joseph's Regional School

The summer has come and gone so quickly. Having a child and a business really does speed up life, even while I'm trying my best to focus on the now. The months of July and August have been very productive and full at TraillWorks from art lessons, commissions, creating my own artwork, and hosting events.

Several posts ago, I wrote about a big mural commission that I had taken on for a local private school. It is in progress, though it is not as progressed as I would have expected at this point. But, I'm thrilled with where it is going and I've needed the time. I've ended up working on about a window a week - the creation aspect is the hardest, not necessarily the execution of the mural. Some of the images are pulled directly from student drawings, but most are mine that were developed after working with the students, learning about their school, and then going to the drawing board in my studio. I've been in constant touch with a parent at the school and thus far she is thrilled with what I've done.

The mural is comprised of nine windows, coincidentally, just as many grades are in the school. The school desired the incorporation of Noah's Ark, the Resurrection and the Ascension. From there I worked with several of the students to spark other ideas about their school. The school's mission, academic subjects and the idea of God in all things drove the rest of the mural.

I decided to label the windows with numbers to symbolize each grade in the school. The overall composition is carried visually by a prop plane, drawn by one of the students, pulling a banner with the school's mission through the windows. The mural is somewhat narrative and chronological in that it begins in Kindergarten with the Flood and the animals embarking on New Jersey and ends in window 9, with the Ascension of Christ, handing over a mortar board to an 8th grader.

I'm reaching the finished state of the design and am striving to complete it before school begins in September. The next big step is determining how I will transfer these large drawings onto the exterior of the school. I believe I have two options: grid the entire drawing by hand, or use a projector at night. Any and all suggestions are welcome!