Costa Rica 2020

First, I want to thank you all for visiting our page and supporting our work! We have been doing mural exchanges for many years now, and we are finally taking the next step towards becoming a non-profit! 

Murals talk is proud to partner with the Central PA Community Foundation in order to further advance our mission and provide more opportunities for youth throughout Central Pennsylvania to use their creativity to connect to their peers both locally and abroad!

This year we are taking on our largest project ever! The team will be installing an 850 sqft. mural in San Jose, Costa Rica! The mural was designed by elementary school children from several schools in the San Jose valley and will be executed by children (and some adults) throughout Central Pa. Once completed the mural will be taken to, and installed in, its permanent location at La Escuela Pacifica Fernandez in an impoverished region of San Jose. 

In August, 2019, Artists Pam and Anju traveled to Costa Rica to inspect potential mural sites throughout the San Jose Valley. After carefully weighing all the factors, they settled on a wall that acts as a border wall to a large open field area used both by the school for physical education each day, but also by the entirety of the community every day. Following a days work, many families convene at the fields for soccer practice, socializing, playing games, and picnic style dinners. The location of the mural will have the strongest impact as it is used daily by all members of the surrounding community!

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Since our return, we have been working towards the completion of the mural and the organization of 2 return trips to Costa Rica. 

Painting:
The mural is being produced on a mural cloth which is a Primed Poly-tab material commonly used in this application. The mural cloth we use is purchased from Mural Provisions in Philadelphia, Pa and comes pre-primed which is incredible convenient!

The mural made its public debut at the State Creative Placemaking Summit as a Pop-up Art Experience. Attendees were able to begin working on the underpainting of the mural before and during breaks in presentations. The mural has also been worked on at the Juniata Gap Elementary School in Altoona, PA where 6th grade students participated in completing the underpainting on the first panel. When we work in schools, we do more than just paint with the students. These classroom sessions include informative discussion about the children we are helping, their communities, culture, daily life struggles, similarities to us, differences from us, etc... The process is intended to spark dialogue for these young people and help them gain some healthy perspective into their own life circumstances. The students end each classroom session by participating in the painting of the mural panel. 

After the underpainting was completed, artist Pam worked to complete the detail work using the students color blocking as a foundation for shading and other details. Much of the mural remains the work of the students, and wherever possible, efforts are made to leave the work of the young people untouched.

The first panel of the mural is now complete and ready to be trimmed, rolled, and packed for the March trip to Costa Rica. This panel, along with 1-2 additional panels, will be installed on the wall in this first trip. Installation of these sections will serve several purposes. It will enable the artist team to trouble shoot any installation challenges they encounter, test the materials against a much different climate than we are accustom to working in here, and will give the children and community a glimpse of the exciting mural to come!

Butterflies:
While Pam works on the execution of the painting portion of the mural, Dr. Anju Jolly is busy constructing 18, very large, glass mosaic butterflies to adorn the mural. A critical piece of the story, these butterflies represent the imagination, dreams, goals, and self-belief that these children will gain from things that inspire them. When we visited in August we specifically sought to incorporate inspirational qualities into the mural. The children were inspired by arts & culture, nature, animals, family & community, among other things. They also all agreed that the core to achieving their dreams was their education and reading which is represented at the core of the mural design as you can see at the top of this page.

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The butterflies are made using a lightweight, Styrofoam based, backing (wedi board). The tiles are affixed to the board and grouted in the standard fashion. The glass tiles pieces have been donated by a number of people and artists in support of this project, and we are so grateful for their contributions! 

Once the butterflies are completed they will be packed in our luggage and transported to Costa Rica! We plan to also install the first 2-3 butterflies in March as well. 

As you can see there are a lot of things happening. Many more schools will be visited, a few public participation days will be coming in March, April and May; and we invite anyone to join in the fun as we look to inspire these young people through art! If you are interested in supporting our efforts, we are still in need of donations. None of our artists take any of the proceeds from donations. 100% of your contribution goes directly into the project as we volunteer all of our time! Check our DONATE page to see how you can help us make a difference!