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Student mural leaves mark on Kennedy [UPDATED]
Published 1:56pm Tuesday, October 12, 2010 Updated 1:59pm Tuesday, October 12, 2010Following an old tradition, a mural painted by high school art students is now on display in the music department at Kennedy Secondary School.
Senior Conor Lee and Jacob Herrick, who graduated last spring, together painted a jazz ensemble on a large canvas for their final project in advance drawing and painting last year.
They had wanted to paint a mural for a while, Lee said, and with the new school opening this fall, they decided to make it for the band, choosing jazz as the subject because Lee plays guitar for the school’s jazz ensemble and both have an interest in music.
Painting with acrylics on a 4-foot by 6-foot canvas, the two started in April and finished during the first week of summer vacation.
“I think they did a great job,” art instructor Peder Butenhoff said. “They did a good job of capturing the jazz nigh club feeling, yet also with the colors they used to give it that offset feel for jazz.”
Murals had been a large part of the old high school, he added. In the Roosevelt building, students, with the assistance of art teachers, had “produced scenes of beauty and inspiration.”
The murals used to be painted on the walls, but when Lee and Herrick approached band director Jim Iverson and their art teacher, Butenhoff, last spring with the idea to have artwork in the new music department, they decided to instead paint on a large canvas that could be moved and saved.
“Unfortunately, some of the murals are going to be lost at the old building, or they’ll never really be seen again,” Butenhoff said. “We’re going to do all of them on canvas now, so if a point in time ever comes where it needs to be moved, it can be so it doesn’t get painted over.”
The painting now hangs in the corner of the band room, where the jazz band sits during rehearsal. As a guitarist in jazz band, Lee himself will sit in front of it almost every day during his final year of high school. He wants the mural to remain on display in the music department permanently, and plans to visit after he graduates. “I want to leave my mark on the school,” he said.
If Iverson’s appreciation of the mural is any indication, the painting will stay where it is for as long as the building stands, and both Lee and Herrick will leave their mark on Kennedy Secondary School.
“I really like it down here,” Iverson said. “In the new school here, we’re trying to give it a little bit of personality. It takes a while, and that’s a good first step to try to give the room a little personality.”
