For the last two weeks, visiting artists have been leading local elementary school students in a collaborative project that combines visual art as well as songwriting across three Northern Valley communities.
Cora Rose and José Vilchez arrived in the Northern Valley last month to kick off the latest project in their joint initiative, “Art We There Yet?” Based out of a brightly colored school bus that doubles as a studio, Rose and Vilchez have already traveled to more than twenty communities to bring art projects to life. Rose explains how each piece is inspired by the community where it was created.
“’Art We There Yet?’ is a project to travel North to South America, Alaska to Argentina, creating art and music inspired by the Americas, all while connecting with communities along the way….We hope to paint a mural in every country between here and Argentina.”
Art We There Yet came to the Northern Susitna Valley with the help of Denali Arts Council. DAC Business Manager Michelle Crow says she wanted the project here to focus on cooperation between the communities of Talkeetna, Trapper Creek, and Willow.
“We discussed this idea that I had about doing a program that not only involved every school in the Upper Susitna Valley, but kind of required every school in the Upper Susitna Valley to work together.”
The three murals feature subjects very familiar to local residents. Vilchez says the design was inspired by the local landscape.
“In this case, I wanted to portray the background using the [Alaska Range], which is very prominent here in these three communities. And then the idea of having the mascots was really easy, because they all represent wildlife in the area.”
The foreground of each mural features one of the elementary school mascots, the Willow Wolverine, Trapper Creek Husky, and Talkeetna Timberwolf. Cora Rose says the concept was to have students in each school paint a mural that would ultimately end up in a different school.
“Once the kids really got that idea, it was really special to see their reactions….They realized they were painting a gift for somebody, and they got really excited about that. Then they got really excited about the idea of ‘Well, who’s painting ours?’”
The murals are only part of the artistic collaboration, however. Students in all three communities also combined efforts to write an original song. Rose says the songwriting process has three layers, so working with three schools was a perfect fit.
“Students in Trapper Creek wrote a chord progression. Students in Willow listened to that chord progression, and wrote down their thoughts, their feelings, imagery that it brought to mind….Basically I took their words and strung them into poetry, and then took all of those lyrics to Talkeetna, where the students then added a melody to those lyrics.”
The collaboration will culminate on Sunday afternoon at Su Valley with the unveiling of all three murals connected to form a single image. Students will also perform the song they wrote together. After that, the murals will travel to their permanent homes at local elementary schools. While Sunday will be the only time all three murals will be displayed together, Vilchez says Su Valley will display a special tribute to the collaboration.
“The idea during the process of the panels came that it would be cool to paint the three panels on canvas in a smaller size….Because that’s where the students will eventually re-convene, and it will be nice for them to remember this project.
Doors for the unveiling of the Art We There Yet? Project at Su Valley will open at 4:00 pm Sunday afternoon with the official unveiling at 4:30. Following that, there will be a spaghetti dinner hosted by the Su Valley PTSA and the Talkeetna Roadhouse.
In the meantime, the murals are being housed at the Sheldon Community Arts Hangar in Downtown Talkeetna, where local painters can help with the final touch-ups before Sunday.
