Mural is Underway at Sharon Center School

Following months of advocacy, planning, and overseeing the selection of a muralist, the project to brighten a public-facing wall at Sharon Center School in Sharon, Conn., began in earnest on Labor Day weekend. A few days later the mural inspired by the children at Sharon Center School was already taking shape.

Muralist Morgan Blair was busy with a vibrant palette of colors to create the mural based on the students’ floral designs found on the indoor mural at the school. She paused her work for a conversation on Wednesday, Sept. 6. She said her approach is to imagine that the two student-inspired murals are in conversation with each other.

“It’s my favorite thing to do,” Blair said of the project. “The kids’ drawings were inventive and sometimes weird — interpretations of a flower that are totally beyond.

“I love to see the kids recognize their designs, seeing that they’ve been blown way up for the mural,” Blair added.

 Blair said that, as of now, the new mural still needs a title. 

“Maybe that’s something I can come up with with the kids,” she said.

Asked about the details, Blair said, “The process is intuitive for me, but the kids have so many questions. ‘Why that brush? Why did you stop there? Why, Why, Why…?’ It is clearly a valuable art lesson for the sidewalk superintendents as they stop by to inspect the progress.”

Blair expected that the weather-dependent project would take two more weeks to complete. The work began with a projected image on the wall to set the design. She uses exterior, semi-gloss acrylic paint, chosen for its resistance to the elements.

“It should last,” she said of the mural while crediting Sharon Center School art teacher Lilly Barnett for her work in making the whole project a reality.