hello and welcome. As people are filtering in. We'll get started in just a minute. Hello. Welcome everyone to our session today. Cultivating learning, building community with murals. I'm Philippa Rapoport, the lead for education and engagement at the Smithsonian Office of Educational technology which is a central education office at the Smithsonian, and the office behind the Smithsonian learning lab. I'm joined today by, Maureen Leary, she's the youth and family programs manager
at the Smithsonian national postal museum. Rafael Lopez, an award winning illustrator, artist and muralist who's work you can find at the Smithsonian. Also, Tess Porter is working behind the seens the user experience strategist at the office of Smithsonian educational technology. We're joined today, our ASL interpreter aman that Grasian and also, Carmen, Cromartie will be doing our captioning today. So, thank you everyone for joining us and for being here. Our presenters and our a
udience. The murals are one of the oldest visual art forms known to humans. And they've been cruised to spread social and political messages reflect cultural identity, and reviatlaize neighborhoods. In our session today, Maureen and Rafael l explore how educators in all types of learning environments can leverage mural making to encourage self expression and build community. You'll leave this session today with resources and strategies to explore murals as an art form, and also to i
nitiate your own mural projects with learners of all ages. This is a very special session today, Rafael has created 13 U.S. postal stamps, he's created 5. Portraits documenting Latino heritage and culture that are displayed at the Smithsonian national museum of the American Latino. And he's worked extensively with the national postal museum as their first guest artist, teaching workshops to children and families in the Washington, D.C. area. Maureen is a treasured educator at the S
mithsonian, she's been here about 25 years, started out at the Smithsonian early enrichment center, which is a nationally recognized pre-school program, focusing on a using memos and community resources to enrich the lives of young children. And provide a positive foundation for lifelong experiences. From there, she went to the national postal museum and she's been one of the key figures across the entire Smithsonian Institution ensuring that we engage our young audiences thoughtfully
and meaningfully. So I'm so pleasure pleased you both are able to be here today.. We'd love for this session today to be interactive. So please, feel free to share your comments and ideas in the chat. We'll be checking that throughout the presentation today. Make sure you mark that it's a comment that goes to everyone so that everyone can see it. And if you have questions at anytime, please feel free to put use the Q&A button, and we'll address those either at the time or at the e
nd of our session. I see some of you are already introducing yourselves in the chat. It really wonderful to see you here. And we'll be chatting more throughout the event. You probably know, but you've joined us. This is part of our programming to enrich the Smithsonian learning lab, which is a free online platform where you can discover digital museum resources from across the Smithsonian create interactive learning experiences, and then share your discoveries and creations with ot
hers. We will be sharing resources today in the Smithsonian learning lab. We've created a special collection just for this session. And you'll be able to find all the resources that we're discussing in that collection. post that link in the chat. Go to the educator page in the lab. If you go to the bottom of any page on the lab click on get started this is the page you'll see. And we have all kinds of content there to help you use the lab to discover, create and share. And then
if you click at the top there, you see it says "webinars and events" that will take you to our archived sessions. And you can find a whole range of programming there to help you think about how the use museum, digital museum content effectively for learning. Upcoming we have two really wonderful sessions coming up this spring. At the end of March the next event if our cultivating learning series will be working with Eden Cho who's from the National Museum of American History, and sh
e'll be talking about civic engagement with young people. That's on March 27th. And then the following month April 24th, Anne Helmrich will be our guest the Director of The archives of American art, she'll be talking about the developing informational literacy. So all of the logistics done. Let's dive into our program. A reminder that our session is recorded. That's what allows us to make it into the archives session. And let's start out with a question. The question we want to
pose to you all today is, why might you make a mural? And while you're putting your thoughts in the chat, I will turnout over to Maureen. Maureen Leary: All right. Do we want to move to the next slide with the postal museum. Introducing the postal museum now, I think. (Laughter). So, hello everybody. And, thank you fill full for that lovely introduction. Thank you, Philippa for that lovely introduction, I'm the youth and families program manager at the postal museum, I like to
start out with a background on the postal museum because one of the smaller units of the Smith submit and less well-known of many of our counterparts. We have the second largest collection at the institution with over 6 million objects. A big chunk are postal stamps, especially the one one Rafael Lopez has designed. We're more than a stamping museum. We are at heart an American History Museum. And we offer comprehensive historical content on the Postal Service in the U.S., mail an
d mail delivery, postal, transportation and innovations and all the people, places and things that have been and continue to be so vital to the operations of the United States Postal Service. I think Philippa should I keep going with my slides? Did you want to go back to the order of the program? We talking about anything coming through in the chat? On why people make murals? I see we have certainly some of the things that I would think of culturally pull your community together.
Encourage my students to bring together several threads of learning. We have a lot in the chat. I encourage people to read it. Connect people with art, for sure. To recognize community at a moment in time. That's a great one for what I'm going to be talking act today. So we have some really wonderful answers in the chat. And I encourage everybody to take a moment to go and take a read. Okay. If I'm Philippa, did you want to go through the order of the program? Then I'll go into
my slides? Sure. >> Philippa Rapoport: So we've already done our introduction. But, the program for today is that Maureen will give a history of Post Office murals. We will do a close looking activity. And then Rafael will talk about why make a mural? So, we'll return back to that question, he'll really go through sort of the nuts and bolts of his work with various communities making murals. Then at the end, we'll have time for Q&A. So I'll follow your lead, Maureen
. Maureen Leary: Beautiful, sorry. I got things a little bit out of order. Apologies for that. But yeah, I'm seeing some really wonderful answers in the chat. Increased visual representation. Celebrating diversity, bringing bo beauty to an environment. All of these things we'll touch on, I appreciate everyone that has contributed to that conversation. To sump into one of my favorite topics -- to jump into bun of my favorite topics related to posting history. If
we could move to the next slide. I want to talk today about the new era Post Office murals. These are just, I find them to be a really fascinating topic. These murals are spread throughout the oh country and I would bet most of our viewers here today could find one in a Post Office not too far from where they live. If any of you have one near you, please put it in the chat I would love to hear about it. The history of these Post Office murals start with Franklin D R
oosevelt who was President from 1933-1945. This was a very tumultuous time in U.S. history. The great depression that began in 1929 meant that millions of Americans were unemployed, or under employed when F -- FDR's first term started. Next slide. So after taking office, Roosevelt quickly announced the new deal, which featured numerous social programs designed to both put people to work and improve their lives. Our tises were included in the jobs initiatives, artists
were included in the jobs initiative and a massive amount of public art was created as a result. This was under the projects administration, which was commonly known as the WPA, which was a government agency that ran from 1935-1943 with the goal of providing jobs to the unemployed while also building up public infrastructure. The Post Office murals fall under the general new deal art umbrella. However, they were born out of a much smaller more specific initiative that was
designed to bring art to people, all over the country. In 1934, the Treasury Department's section of painting and sculpture was officially established. Later renamed the section of fine arts and generally referred to simply as the section, which is what you'll hear me do today. It's mission was to transform federal buildings, nostly Post Offices, into -- mostly Post Offices into Democratic art galleries. So I wanted to make sure to point out this distinction because,
the murals commissioned by the section under the Treasury Department are commonly mistaken for WPA work. So even if you hear them referred to that way, if it's a historic Post Office mural, it's almost certainly a product of the Treasury Department not the WPA and it's purpose was very different. These murals were intended to uplift and unify communities during a difficult time and they do that in much the same way that modern murals aim to do. So this program was very
successful in it's output, it spent nine years employed 8 a art artists produced 1371 murals, Post Offices were selected for this program because in a era before email and cell phones almost everyone regularly visited the Post Office to keep in touch with the outside world. So Post Offices were really the perfect place to expose average citizens to art. The painted murals typically measured ten or twelve feet in length and five feet in height. And, while the finished m
urals are of course mostly still on the walls in their original locations, the Smithsonian is fortunate to have many of the mural studies or drafts in it's collection. And that is what we'll be looking at today. So these drafts were generally made at a scale of one or two inches to one foot. So the mural studies are actually quite small. You can't really tell when you're looking at them on a screen, on a PowerPoint that. Was actually a is surprise to me when I first
saw them in person at the American art museum. Next slide. The American art museum at the Smithsonian has about 200 of these mural studies in their collection. And it was extremely hard to choose which ones to share today. But I really was trying to select ones that would give an overview of the types of themes that dominated this body of work. So here we see a study for a Post Office mural in freeland, Pennsylvania. Which is a good example of a pleasant, bucolic scene
that many of the murals depicted. Mural artists were also encouraged to per assume themes that were optimistic and historic and to avoid conflicts of race, depend or class. The section wanted artwork that would be accessible and relatable for local residents. I just want to call out something I zoo he in the -- I want to call out something I zoo he? The chat. We have the arts and humanities foundation say I work inning Seli iniaa, Kansas that has new deal, communi
cations in land that was installed by Carl. That is a existing point. Some of the artwork commissioned under this section were are actually sculptures, there were about 1600 works of art in total almost 1400 were murals and there were sculptures as well. That is cool. You have an example of that in your community. Next slide, please. Here is another example of a landscape seen for a Post Office in Corneelia, Georgia, artists were encouraged to collaborate with the l
ocal community when choosing the subject smany of the artists never visited the location where the murals eventually hung, they did at least correspond with the postmaster when selecting topics there. Was a design approval process that was tightly controlled be I the section. It can actually be fascinating to compare the mural studies with the turn product to see where they decided the changes needed to be made. Next slide. So as I mentioned, there were of course many
different kinds of things depicted on these murals. There are a large number of them showing everyday scenes of leisure and community. This one shows us a town festival if Iowa where we see a marching band, people dancing. And if we were to zoom in to those signs on the light post we would see they say welcome to hamberg, and there is a original footnote, the original was destroyed. In 1999 the art society in Wisconsin painted a replica, this mural is on view now
in the lobby done by students. Unfortunately hundreds of Post Office murals have been destroyed or taken down due to varied circumstances. But there are still about 900 on view in the U.S. Next slide. So here is another example of a mural depicting leisure activities by Jenny Megifan. This one has an interesting anecdote to it as well. The scene is set in Ans ohan, Texas, but the artist primarily lived in Colorado, New York and California, during her research on app
ropriate subject matter she learned about the town's annual scare dance called the Texas cowboys Christmas ball, a three night event that began in 1885 and continues today. The artist's research was evidently not exhaustive though, as she added a detail to the time painting that we don't see in the study here, a small liquor jug can be seen in the wall mural at the foot of the musician who is seated in the lower right corner. This ended up creating great concern among s
ome town residents as Anson was and still is a dry town. Many locals we offended but what they took to be a jab at the community's right moral character. Next slide. So moving on to another common mural theme, industry was frequently highlighted in these artworks. During a time of great hardship for many, murals depicting industry were intended to emphasize the abilities of communities to work hard, come together, in pursuit of a common goal. Of this artist, Natalie
Henry, took very seriously the charge to reflect the local community offspringdeal Arkansas while planning the mural she interviewed springdale residents structured her design to include all all the local crops and livestock that had brought prosperity to the settlement. A close look at those details reveal a Strawberry patch in a poultry yard in the foreground with a vineyard and you can see the wheat fields with a view of the Ozarck mountains in the distance them is
not a scene you would see in the reality, but she worked hard to fit all of the important elements into this one image. All though henly was living in Chicago at the time. She showed her perm connection to Arkansas with several portraits of family members living there in the image. Next slide. So this mural from Buchanan, Michigan, depicts another aspect of local industry, that was popular in these murals that is factory production. Especially types that required sk
illed workers. And this one is notable because it includes both workers who are clearly busy at their tasks as well as men who appear to be taking a companion lunch break. The artist for this mural Gertrude goodrich lived in New York and sometime before he death in 2017, she wept back to Michigan to see the mural. She discovered that it had been painted over. (Laughter). So she request that it be restored. She provided a large black-and-white print of an early mural
study to hang in place of the mural wheel funds were sought to uncover it from four layers of paint. That process is still ongoing. So the fate of this mural is a bit uncertain. We certainly hope it gets uncovered. It should be safe meanwhile under all that paint. There is still hanging there the black and white image of it if you're in that area and want to take a look at it. Next slide. So, local history is another important topic covered in many of these murals
. Here is a description of this mural from the Smithsonian collection record. Receiving a commission for the Dogleville New York Post Office mural, James Michael Newell read extensively on the history of the Mohawk valley and found "some of the most interesting and exciting American material I have ever looked into." And Underground Railroad he captures a moment of Democratic ideaism important in the history. His painting December pickets an abolitionist farmer hurrying
escaped slaves out of sight as dawn break as the the Brocket farm one of two under ground railroad stations near the village limits. He highlighted the heroism of those enslaved and the people who helped them showing a man laning into the lot earn light reading the offer reward for his capture. This mural entitled "the fur traders" is representative of Idaho's first permanent American fur trading post fort Henry, which was established in 1810 on the snake river near St.
About Anthony the first site soft the rendezvous of the American traders in the region of. This reflects one of the first early scenes defining that scene of the relationship between native people and people of the European cultures the trade and mixture of cultures together. And, it's showing the trade from the Native American tribes in the area which were mostly the Shushumi and those settlers who came in who were mountain men or trappers. Native Americans are featured
in about 400 of the total collection of Post Office mural, although only 24 of the 850 muralists were Native American. Next slide. In 2019 the U.S. posting service paid homage to these murals by issuing a set of five stamps with murals on them. Here you can see a couple of the main themes I just highlighted including the Native Americans and landscapes. And this stamp in the top center shows mail carriers readying for an airmail flight. Post Offices, postal workers a
nd mail delivery were very common themes found in the murals which was very fitting since they were all going up in post offices. So 30 million sets of these stamps were printed at the time of issue. And, while these stamps are to longer sold by the Postal Service, they are very easy to find on secondary market sites such as Amazon and hipstamp, if you'd like to own your own tiny version of a Post Office mural. Okay. Next slide, please. Before I get to this one, I'm
just taking a peak at the chat. I see a question about I'm curious as to what percentage of the art was created by women. I am going to get to that. Do not worry. But now I'd like to spend a few minutes taking a closer look at one mural. This here is a mural study for, band con Earth by Marian Gilmore, and the finished mural hangs in a Post Office in corning, Iowa we'll do a close looking at that image. I want to point out one interesting tidbit. If you look to the (a
udio cut out). >> Debuted it -- (audio cutting out). Be very -- one final detail I'd like you to notice on this image is the gray rectangle at the bottom center. Though this happens to be the only study we've looked at today that actually has that rectangle there. It is common to see that on these mural drafts. In the next slide, we'll go ahead and advance, you can see the reason for that. The reason that gray rectangle is on many of these mural studies is that the m
urals were typically placed above the door to the postmaster's office, because that was a very central area where everybody coming in and out of the Post Office could see the artwork. So the artist wanted to account for that space that was going to be taken up by the top of the door when they were creating their drafts. (Audio cuts out). I think Maureen might be freezing. The details of these -- >> Oh. No. Just a little bit. I think you're freezing just a little bit.
Maureen Leary: I'm sorry. Just go back a minute or two. >> I think people got that the gray you talked about how that was -- they planned for that. But it -- Maureen Leary: Start from the top oh of the slide here? Okay. Sorry about that. This internet is you know, never perfect. But thank you for letting me know, Philippa, I definitely want to make sure everybody hears what I'm saying. Okay. So that rectangle that we talked about at the end of the last slide wa
s on a lot of these mural studies because, these muralless were typically placed above the door to the postmaster's office. And that was a space where a lot of people could see the artwork. It was a very open area, a common area where people could go in and out and see the art. That was a great place to put the murals. And the artists wanted to account nor that space when they were make -- account for that space when they were making their draft. I wanted to use this
image for our close looking because the details of these artworks were really scrutinized by the section. They often require changes to align them more closely with the ethos of the community. So I'd like you to please just take a look in time to really look at this painting and then, I'll ask you to note in the chat any details that jump out at you. And so for this right now really just making observations about what you see and not, interpreting it or putting any me
aning on it. Just noting in the chat any -- whatever details jump out at you like I said. We'll take minute to do that. Take a look. Put some things in the chat. Lots of movement and color. Strange angle in the forefront. Glow of right from the band stand that we see the moon. One of the things I noticed a difference between this one and the draft is this one to me seemed brighter, a bit brighter. Mixture of genders, ages, races, pets allowed at the band. (Laugh
ter). Families, community members, the light is different from different points of view. Expressions, lots of conversation. Lot of children even though it appears to be late in the evening. Seems welcoming, illuminating light. Great comments. Okay. It seems there's a bit of a theme in what you note, certainly that aspect of community. Different types of people. Kind of the general sort of festive fun feeling about this event. Now we're going to take another step wi
th this and I want you to look at this artwork think about it through a particular lens that is related to your identity. These could be things like gender, race, age, actual orientation, culture, religion, occupation, the list can go on. So whatever lens you choose when you're looking at the painting through that lens, are there different details that seem primarily noteworthy to you? Does it make you feel more connected to the image?less connected to the image? Does
it create questions for you about what's going on in the picture? The history of the community? I invite you to share any reactions that you have to that image when considering it through your own personal identity lens. You could try a lens that's not one. Your own. Think about how your reaction to this painting may differ if you try to step outside of your own perspective. Kind of to give it -- going beyond surface level there, giving it more meaning. I see some thing
s in the chat. I seedy verse, then, the next comment, I -- I see, diverse, I don't see any Asian Americans. Uplifting merit of the community time ago. Yes, these were all decades ago. Multiracial family or community no woman in sneakers. (Laughter). Certainly different than modern times. Women in the orchestra. A family environment that is friendly for animals. All the women are wearing stress, not many African Americans. It reminds me of a small town in Venezuela, a celebrat
ion, maybe a Sunday evening. People dressed in different attire for different occupation, that was a detail I noticed too. The baby in the orchestra, I don't think I noticed that or looked for that. It is there's a lot going on, if you're interested in it, I do recommend you going online and zooming. In a walkable space, no cars or types of transportation, that's an interesting one. Not a picnic setting. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all. No indigenous folks. Everyone seems able
bodied. Yep. Yep. You all are definitely picking up on some of these themes. The reason why I chose this particular exercise. I wanted to wrap up with them this activity is called "lenses." I made reference to lenses. And I think it raises an important point that I didn't really touch on in the rest of this conversation. These murals are an impressive body of working. And they give us a unique snapshot into the lifestyles and values from people across the oh country during a v
ery specific time. But the lenses through which this group of artists looked were not actually very diverse. Of the 850 artists who did this work, there were 162 women. 24 American Indians and a few others from minority groups. So there were specifically 3 -- 3 black and a few Latino and Asian. It's difficult to track down the numbers because of the conflation with the WPA artwork. So women and minorities had some representation in the artists who created this large body of work
. But still, not surprisingly for the 1930s and 40s, the artists were overwhelming white men. And I could do an entire presentation on the controversies some of these murals have engendered, especially when looking at them through a modern lens. But, today we were focusing on the positive aspect of how murals can build communities. So I didn't want to dive into all of that. But I did want to make sure to mention it because, if you are interested in exploring these murals in your l
earning environment, it will be very important to do some background research, really consider the lens through which the story is being told, both in terms of of the times, but also the perm identity it of the afterties. -- the personal identity of the artists, they have a fascinating glimpse of the history and local culture, across the oh country, they're a valuable teaching tool, they're worth cherishing. But it's important to look at them with a critical eye also. So I have just
one final image on the next slide to share with you. As I prepare to hand the program over to Rafael Lopez. I thought this one was Apt it debe pickets a 70-foot tall mural that is located in Washington, D.C., fairly close to the postal museum. It a mail carrier. The man in the mural is buck hill, he's a lifelong washen tone January who died in 2017 at the age of 90. He began performing in jazz clubs along the U Street corridor in the 1940s when the area was known as black broadway
, he played with jazz greats such as dizzy guy lip pee and Miles Davis, he wanted to that I in DC. He spent more than 40 years as a mail carrier, his dedication to both of the careers lead him that the nickname the mailing mailman, the before and after show the power of murals to transform and butte fie public spaces as well as commemorate important people and events. Here to talk to you a lot more about that is my good friend, Rafael Lopez. >> Rafael Lopez: (silence). Thank you so
much everyone. Thank you Maureen, that was really interesting. It was fascinating to hear about this. I have a lot of questions, because many of the things I saw were painted on canvas, I wonder if those were finished pieces or eventually put on the wall. So today, I was invited, hey, as a Latino muralist, we have a minority! The murals that I have created in the past 18 years, so thank you again for giving me some time this afternoon to tell you a little bit more
about myself. I give you the step by step things of how do you create a mural? Because it's easy to say let's do a mural. How do you get started? So, first of all, I want to thank Philippa for helping me with the slides, transitions. And I'll tell you about my background. My name is Rafael Lopez. Next slide, please. I'm known also as a children's book illustrator, I've been doing this for almost 20 years, I truly enjoy it, because I like to put diverse characters
on my book. I like to talk about talk about people who are overcoming obstacles in my stories. I like to work with people that write positive stories about people who overcome huge obstacles. So it's very rewarding to do that. Next slide. So today, it's about maybe doing something beautiful. Which was part of the inspiration of creating this book, the work we have done in my community in San Diego. Let's move to the next one. I was born in Mexico City them is me
pre tending to be a baby. I come from a country and a culture of murallism. And murallism in Mexico reflected more of the social injustices that were happening in Mexico, there was no middle class, there were either rich people or poor people. Artists like Diego Riverra or others where they represent the muralists of the time. Next picture. And I'm also surrounding by color. Lots of color. That easy are the colors of Mexico that you see everyday. If you have chroma
phobia you're in a lot of trouble if you go to Mexico. Next slide. The sun of two architects that I met in the 1950s at the big university in central Mexico, I wanted to become an architect myself, I was terrible with numbers and math, I never really got along. The closest thing my participants thank you to my participants encouragement I became a artist. And it took a little while to establish myself, but I'm glad they believed in me. Next page or slide. So currentl
y, I live San Diego and Mexico part of the time. This is not the San Diego that I live in, this is what you see when you go and visit it for the first time. I brought a old warehouse in downtown San Diego in the warehouse district which is the next slide. This is what my neighborhood looks like in my imagination. Everything was pretty much gray and it was lack of human participation of neighborly participation, I can show you photos of what you can find everyday. I was s
urrounded by this, it was amazing how we created aof crated a beautiful place inside the warehouse, windows were shot, people weren't talking to each other, people were afraid of walking outside because they didn't want to find themselveses in situations where they could be in danger. We talked to the neighbors saying how can we allow this? We're a neighborhood. We have to do something about it. I started walking around. Next page or photo. And I noticed that there w
as a lot of walls he werety walls, full of graffiti, I said why don't I go talk to the owners of the warehouses and ask them if they would like us to create some murals. We can butte fie the neighborhood. The answer was an immediate yes. They were desperate to have someone that would do this for them.. Next slide. Next slide. So the difference what I wanted to do is I wanted to engage the community and create their own murals. Where I could design something that wo
uld be very simple, and then, the tradition of creating a mural is that mostly you the artist, hire the artist because you like their style. You know they're going to take three to four month to a year to create a mural. Three to five assistants help them out. And my idea was that we had a limited time. We what needed to engage as many people from the community as possible. So the whole idea of the community murals began back in San Diego, back in the late 80s or ear
ly 90s, next slide. So I'll tell you a little bit exactly what Maureen was talking about. The door for the postmaster you need to find the wall, the permission, you know this is a very critical area. It can be anywhere. It could be even at a school, maybe it's an abandoned area from the school where no one likes to hangout. Or it could be a critical area under your neighborhood. I asked for the permission. I take photos and measurability of the whole wall, where I'
ll have ossicles, distance, windows, doors, pipes. These are the first notes I do. I take them back to the studio. Next slide. And I start sketching things. Notice that my designs are very graphic. They're very simple. Not controversial. I don't want it to be political. I want to avoid conflict. I want my murals to be a moment for you and your busy life to take a break an eye break, to sit there and reflect and pick on any sim symbol you see, make meaning out
of it. Whether let's reflects freedom of happiness, quiteness or you euphoria, I designed having very graphic, and flat. So people would be participating in the creation of the mural would not be intimidated if they've never held a brush in their lives before. This was the style I created for awhile. Next slide. That is what I do. I actually once I have an approved project, and I know exactly the proportions of the wall, I put them into my computer. And I do every
thing now on the computer in a program called photo shop, I can pick up colors and try them in different areas. Thissee seem to go faster if I do it by hand. You can do it with water color, do different color studies. But doing it on the computer allows me to have five or six different versions of the same mural and change it quickly go from cool to warm, change the whom thing around in a matter of just minutes. Next slide. So here we are, I have selected some of the
colors I have done. Then I'll talk about this grid that you see there later on. This is what I do. I print this out. I actually number those lines, I'll explain to you later. That resident the colors. Now I need to -- these are the colors, I need to find the color for real. This is only digital. Right. Next slide. I have gone to my paint store, my closest one is the Sh Sherwin Williams, they give me the color book, I compare the colors I have on my screen with t
he colors that are the most similar that Sherwin Williams or any paint that you have there are available. Of course you'll need several gallons of all the colors, some may require 3 gallons, some will be just a half a gallon. The one thing that I like to do right away is to invite them to be sponsors of the program. We'll have this mural painting day with all the kids, and the community. And many times, the people that are helping us raise the money or help us with paint l
ike to be sponsors some they give us great deals. Don't forget that. Let them know if they are interested in being sponsors of the program, the big day of painting. Next slide. So can you see me, I'm taking notes, putting the numbers, you see the SW there. That means Sherwin Williams. And then what I try to do is you can see how I put the book right next to the screen and try to match the color as close as possible so now I know I have all the colors that the paint
store has. And I'll be able to order them, and they'll be as close as possible to what I have on my screen on my computer. Next slide. Here you see when I do this, this is the finished product, I print several of these. You can see how many colors are involved here. I think there's about 20 color os. Try to design your murals to have, the least color -- the more colors you have, the more money you'll have to spend, the more money you'll have to raise. Try the least
colors as possible. I printed this and paste this on the wall where we're going to paint the mural. So people have a guide, they know exactly what color goes where. There's no confusion where this paint goes or where this purple goes or this blue goes. Everything is very, very clearly detailed on the wall. Next slide. Everybody thinks, so how do you do it? How do you make those murals? How do you transfer that little tiny sketch into the big wall. These are my
high-tech equipment that I use. That blue cord you see in the bottom. That's what I use us to hold it from one end, on ther end I wrap it around the pencil and create the perfect curves or perfect circles. I use us the snap line, with the assistance of two other people, and I use this snatch line to do the griding, that you'll see in the next you image. This is where you create all the little squares, you'll transfer the square of of your drawing blow it up on the wa
ll. I use a little level. Some streets, they go downhill or uphill. So I use a little lever to make sure my lines are straight. Then what I'm holding in my hand is a chalk stick, that's how I'll transfer the drawing. Next slide. Here you see finally, the grid. And as you can see it numbered from 1-29. Because that means, all this is a very large are mural. And also, 1-9. So every square that you see there converts into the real wall into two feet by two feet. S
o every square that you see there, I use a giant wooden ruler to mark the lines and those plaque lines that you see across, those are the ones that that snapping line you saw in the previous image. You need to have people to hold both ends very, very tight. And someone in the middle to pull it out about let it go, when it snaps it leaves that chalk mark into the wall. And that's what's going to see many the following picture. Next.. Here you see you can see barely se
e those virtual and horizontal lines, those are the snap lines. You can see me using that cord when I'm creating the curves that I'm using. This is probably the most meticulous part the artist who has experience can do. I realized this was a great moment to teach the kids how to do it, the students how to do it. The next time you see me holding it, a let's look at the next one, I'm holding the drawing next to me, so I can go square by square, I actually put pieces of
tap where I say this is number one, this is number two or three. I know exactly what square I'm standing in front of. I look at my drawing and I know exactly what to draw in that particular square. Griding something up to the big size is a little time consuming. But it won't take more than a day to transfer the drawing. But the fun part is to actually see the kids doing it. So next one here. The next line you see I invite them to learn how to do it. Many volunteer
s came that first day, I sat back and enjoyed myself. I just came back and did a few corrections, but we were able to transfer the whole thing in about four hours when you have several able hands. Next slide. And then what we do, once everything is transferred is I start working with only doing the edges of the figures or the shapes. Because, this is going to be the most meticulous work. This is where I invite people too that are either, young artists or some profess
ional -- professional artists or who have more control, I teach them how to do it. I learn very quickly, I say keep the lines very close together, try not to go over the line. Because we're using a specific paint, I'll tell you more about the paint later, if there's mistakes you don't have to panic, make it dry and ten or five minutes you can go back and paint over it. It like the mistake never happened. Next slide. So here we are. We actually did the actual line dr
awing and as you can see, these are high school kids. What I like to do. Because some of these murals are very tall, I like to invite the older kids to do the upper part, they have a it will will more consciousness of the height. They don't have to be taken care of. We have the volunteers mostly adults and some high school kid to actually paint the top part of the mural. I like to have that finished before we do the bottom part. We'll take a look at the next slide.
And here you can see the younger kids, usually I like to have some adults also keep an eye on them, I don't like them to go over two steps oh so you can see. If they're very young we like to hold them back, so they are actually now filling in the spaces. Next slide. I'll show you the progression of how this goes. This about the first day with all the drawing already transferred. You can see in some of the lines that have before over corrected that's totally fine. Y
ou can see how we started doing only the edges of all the areas. Note all the little dots that I put in there. Those dots are to indicate to the -- indicate to the kids or the students what color that will be. You can see no confusion, where the drawn, the might and the yellow will go, by putting and -- and end indicating those dotted lines. This is half of the second day. You can see how strange this looks. It looks really weird. You can see how you're going to
be indicating everything for the community the big painting day to fill in. I like to deep it this way. People look at them and go that's a very strange grid, it will look very different. So let's take a look at the last slide of the same mural. This is what it looks like at the end. And what's great is to see the kids and their Awe in the eyes when they see the time will product come together. Okay. Next slide. It usually takes us about a week to do everything.
We standard on a Monday, by Friday we are done. And then we like to have the Saturday, the weekend or the Sunday to be the big day. So this strategy here is to invite as many people as possible. I like to invite the media, I like to invite the newspapers, any kind of local channel. Because we're tired of negative stories. We would like to hear a lovely positive local story of what's going on in our community. We invite people to actually donate or be sponsors for
lunches, drinks, and musician os are the community by its, if the community want to bring whatever they want to bring, present to the rest of the community, everybody's welcome. So this is the big day when we are going to finish the mural. The mural by this time is about 75% done. We only have basically the bottom part with the little kids are going to come. So next picture. These are the basic things you need for the big day. I welcome you to take a screenshot of
this. You can see the chop sticks you're going to use to do the transfer. The tarp is very essential. Because kids can be very messy. Everybody with be messy, we want to keep it as clean as possible. This this is what you put at the bottom. The buckets for carrying water. I like to have water very close. Rags because it gets a little messy. Picnic balls will be used to pour the color for the kiddos, this is for use with a wooden yardstick, this is what you did wh
en you transferred the drawing. The blue painter tape is what you do with the straight lines, people say how do you achieve the perfect lines, it practice. Of course it not, it blue painters tape, I use it to tape something, paint something, peel it off, you have the per frequent straight line. The most -- the perfect straight line. Office depots, you can go to Office Depot or, not Office Depot, Home Depot, or I go to the Dollar Store, most of the things you see here
are brought at the Dollar Store, I spent $40-120 max. And then thed withen brushes you see there, I go to Home Depot, I get a big bag of them. You can get 120 of them, they have them in bags like that. And I recommend doing that because those things go fast. Paper towels and large trash bags, take a screenshot, this is basically all you need to paint a mural, and of coursing paint. Let's move to the next one. So the paint that I use here is, exterior flat paint. So re
member that, you need to buy flat paint. If you buy anything that is eggshell or anything shiny, it going to be a disaster, somebody can give it two coats, someone else will give it 14 coats the two coats and the 14 coats will look very different at the end. If you use exterior flat paint, it's so forI've going you could have two or fourteen layers it will be the same by the time it dries it will look so even the whole thing, you won't see any of these overworked are
as. So this is what I call the color bar. We actually extend some tables. We set up all the colors. And you can see how we already have some of those labels ready. We have the little plastic jars ready to go. And what I like to do here is invite high school kids, or some of the adults, older adults, let's look at the next picture. And they're going to be the ones in charge of giving the younger kids the paint. I'll will have the colors take all over the mural where
the kids can nowhere to go. What what's your favorite color? Purple. Go to the area where the purple is. This is black, your favorite color, go for it. So, this is the group that is going to be controlling the colors. So, the little kids are not going to be mixing all the other colors as well. They'll be in charge. Next slide. What I do of course, you have a ton of kids that are going to show up. Hopefully you expect more than the 150. But what do you do when
you have 120 kids you can't have them all painting at the same time. What we do a week before the mural. We create a calendar, people write their name down, we set up slated times from like 8:00 o'clock to 8:15, 8:30 to 8. 45, until 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon when we start cleaning up. People put their name down, with we a limit of about 15 kids. And because of their age and their attention span, they are only going to be having a great time for about 15 minutes,
20 minutes at the most, we say times up, they're super happy, the next oh group moves in, they keep painting. So this is what I'm doing right now. This is the team that came in the early part of the morning, I have about 50 kids, I teach them what they have to do. How to follow the indication of every color, and then they just start filling it in. I tell them not to worry if they go over the line, this is flat paint, it's very forgiving. We'll come back five minutes
later and correct it. I want them to have a great time. Next slide. Here I tell them basically very quickly how to hold a brush when they need to get really close to the edges. I let them go for it. Next one. So here they go. I'll share some of the photos of everybody painting. Notice too, sometimes what we do we like to also separate the teams into groups like the diamond group, now let's bring the circle group, now let's bring the rectangle group or the green gr
oup or the orange group, it's a good idea to have maybe tee shirts for the event or just different color tee shirts for the people. So we can organize them better. At some point this could get a little chaotic. Usually I like to have a group of about 10-15 volunteers with me, some of them will be taking care of the id caning some of them will be keeping an eye on the safety and making sure the colors aren't mixed up. Some will be delivering food and drinks. It's alwa
ys great to have a group of 15-20 volunteers to help you out that day. Another picture. Here you go, we see some of the kids being also just, oversight by some of the adults, they're having a great time. Another one. And like I said, this is a community mural. Everybody is welcome. Not just kids. We have senior SIDSs coming in participating. People that just show up or they are curious to see what's going on. What are we doing? And, we say you want to point?
They say I never painted before. They say oh, well, neither half of the people who are here, so please, go ahead. Grab your favorite color, sit and have a great time for 15-20 minutes. Next slide. I mean everybody. Including we invite the police people in the place, this is a great opportunity for many of the areas that have been neglected, or they a have a negative perception of the police officers, this is a great opportunity to tell them, they are part of the com
munity too. We are working all together doing the same thing. And to butte fie our neighborhood. What do you do with the other kids who are are waiting and show up early. We create additional activities on the side. One thing is to create additional just put some fabric out, and they can create their own murals, while they wait to paint on the big mural. This is one example that turned out to be pretty amazing, I wish they could put it in the Smithsonian. This is a
nother one. Another picture. We also have storytelling. You can select a book and that will be the theme of the book, you can do some paperwork, Oragami. Half the people sitting in different areas, you don't have them sitting around. You create as many activities as possible. We've done some yard are bombing we can -- we can wrap it around some leaves and branches. Next picture. One day we selected one of my books called, book Fiesta, based on one of the illustrat
ions on the book Fiesta, let's take a look at the next slide. We brought some boxes we let the kids decorate them and create their own imaginary dragons, as you can see behind it. There's a lot of things going on with all the kids waiting for their turn to do. So you can find so many thing to do bring card boxes they make their own castles, paints, do whatever they like to do. Listen to a story, following some kind of a trail to find some treasures. Next picture. An
d of course, it's a perfect excuse to really get to know the community more. So we take breaks. This case was a very big Latino community. We invited some of the local dancers, they entertained us for awhile. Next one. They sang as we continued to paint on. So you keep the whole crowd entertained. Next picture. And this is where the magic really begins. This two girls went to different schools even though they were neighbors, they never really met each other until th
is day, the day the big painting day. They became very good friends. They continued to be very good friends because they spent a couple of days painting together with me. I think this is what it all about. It really not about painting a beautiful picture, community mural is about bringing the community together. It's a great excuse to bring us together because, we need to, many many, communities we're behind shop doors and closed windows, we don't come out and greet
each other. What better way than to paint a mural. Next picture. So yes, they do, it's actually a magnet. You start painting people get really curious, the first policeman really scared me because I thought I was in trouble, he said I want to paint, I have a half hour off, I want to paint. I said you can come and join us, next picture. This is what's happening. We started here with about 25 kids before you knew it, so many of the other neighbors started coming over
. They just started painting along with them with the kids as well. Next picture. As you can see, you can make new friends, it doesn't matter the age. It doesn't really matter at all. Next picture. You can see here, some of the moments that are happening. You can have people conversing, getting to know each other, we're working, having a great time. We usually have some music playing in the background. There's a lot of breaks in between, lots of free drinks and
food to have everybody entertained. Okay. Next picture. And of course, you learn a lot, right. This was a part where we brought some people from the community, I learned about so much about their food, their music, and, it just a joyful blast painting day, that Saturday or Sunday where you spend 8 hours together with your neighbors while you finish the mural. Next one. So yeah, this is part of that book that we eventually created based on all our experiences. Nex
t one. And, you have all kinds of people. This is like here's a mom helping their little kid. This kid was maybe about 3.5, 4 years old. Next picture. We have some moms that were new to the community. Some immigrants who just showed up, they wanted to be part of it too as well. Everybody's welcome here. Next picture. Grandpas are welcome too. Of course, especially when we run out of ladder, grandpas are very welcome. Watch out for that hair. (Laughter). Next p
icture. And, I'll show you some before and after as I finish my presentation. This is part of our lunch area where nobody stuck around, it was very boring nobody came by. The principal said we want to bring more kids in this area, there's more sun sign in this spot, no one really hangs out. Can you help us out. This is the before. The next picture is five days later, this is what we created the same area, this is a great place for everybody to hangout during the lun
ch hour. This is in the Fresno, California, this wall you would never take a second look at it. Just walk by on your way to school. Huge wall with a huge potential to make it part of the community and actually identify the community. It an agricultural area. So this is what they invited me to do. This is the before. And, this is the after. Here we are one of our biggest murals we've ever done. And with the agricultural theme, you can see everything is very simple
ful very graphic, nothing is very controversial or political. It just sim bombs that people can take a look and they can see and read in the symbolism anything they want to. It's a nice break and a moment of peace and quiet in its. This is another school, another area that was very critical where they wanted to bring people, they wanted to actually put some lunch tables here, but they thought this would be pretty boring. This is the the one I've been showing you. This
is the before and this is the after. And now we have all this lunch areas and tables where kids just come and hangout. Of course promoting literacy as you can see with this open book there as well. One last one. This is a good look. This was in Chicago. And this was a different occasion. This is an area where two girls that were crossing, they need to cross under this railway bridge to go to school. And they were shot. There was a gang fighting. They were shot.
Fortunately they survived. But so the community invited me to say we have a critical area, this is the only way to get to the school, it's really scary and really dark, it's kind of dingy, we would like to bring some color to this area, so I was immediately called in. This was the before. This is the after. To your right now, to where you see the mural turning that area is a community garden where people are invited every spring to come and plant vegetables and flow
ers and they've been doing this now forn the years now. On the other side they created another mural. As you can see, this is no longer that really scary area you have to go by and go as fast as possible. This one brought me a lot of satisfaction, because the community continue to take care of it. It continues to grow with the additional mural and the community garden. Next one. These are the biggest rewards, seeing the eyes of these kids painting the huge thing they
never painted before, knowing it going to be here for a very very long time. Next painting. I keep saying painting. I'm a painter I guess. You can see, you can see how proud they feel of their accomplishment and like I said, it a community mural where everybody's invited. The more diverse the better it is. Next one. The friendships that you make, it's just wonderful to see the gratitude of the community when you bring them something and I get more gratitude from
their help and what they created together to create that recognition that unity and that ownership, and that pride to their neighborhood, the neighborhood that was neglected for so long. All it takes is just a little color, a little hard work. And a little sweat and five days of hard work through the community we can do it all together. Next one. Some of the people that participated have inspired some of my books, look how tiny she is, but she's got a lot of Gannas as we
say if Spanish. Next picture. She eventually became part of my book in my own version that was based on her story. Next picture. So yes, I truly believe this, this is my 18 years doing murals has proven to me that art has the power to bring communities together. No doubt. Last picture. So yes. You too, if you want to, you can create maybe something beautiful. So I encourage you to do anything with your community, whether it's in a small scale or bigger scale,
inside your community, inside your school, wherever it is. It's not that hard, it just bringing some people together, a little organization, and, you'll have an amazing time. This is for me as an artist my most rewarding activity, when I you heuate community murals. So, thank you for your time. When I create community murals. Thank you for your time. Next picture. I want to get back to Maureen, thank you Philippa and everyone for inviting to participate. Thanks a
gain. >> Maureen Leary: Wow! Thank you so much Rafael. We have a lot of questions in the chat and in the Q&A. So let me just toss some of those out there I'm sort of speechless. It just so inspiring and beautiful what you're doing. Jose, Antonio asks, oh have you considered involving the community in the maul idea creation? >> Rafael Lopez: I'm trying to really hear. There's so many. Thank you again, they're all very positive. So, is the question, I'm trying to rea
d here. Maureen Leary: It's 4:55, he's saying have you involved people in creating the idea behind the mural? Rafael Lopez: Yes, yes, that's a great question. I'm sorry, I didn't get it completely. What I do is before I do my design, I eninvite the community to give me ideas, I invite the community to give me ideas, themeless and topics. They make a big list, I like to incorporate as much as possible some of the original designs. But I want them to feel like they
were part of the creative process. This is a really very important part. I don't want to just come in and just establish something that as my vision. I want them to feel a part, oh, this was something that I suggested to Mr. Lopez. This is something that I said too, this is part of our community. So yes, we do that in the process of creating the mural. Good question, thank you. >> Thank you. And then Nelu is asking, how about art which gives the feeling of 3D or de
pth? >> Rafael Lopez: I think that could be a little more challenging, especially with kids that have never had any experience. But, you may be the first one to try it. I've never thought of that. I mean I like to keep ours flat, basically. Part of of it is because of the time and the limited budget we have. I know we only have from 5-7 days. Doing something a little bit more -- it may require to be smaller and maybe something that needs to be built, there needs to
be a little extra materials to create that 3D sense or teaching them perspective. Teaching perspective, they get that 3D. But that might take more than a few hours to teach someone perspective. But, maybe, maybe someone knows how to do it. That would be a good try. >> Maureen Leary: We have a few questions about protecting and maintaining the mural. So like, do you apply a topcoat? Or a Vernneer. >> Two things I want to cover here. Usually warm colors like reds and o
ranges will fade faster than blues. Have you noted when you see a old poster they turn very bluish, go into the cooler side when you go to a old shop and you see a poster that has been sitting there for about 20 years you say it doesn't look that warm anymore it turns bluish. Sometimes what I do, if it's going to be full of sun exposure, I know that I want this mural to last for ten, fifteen year, I go more into the cool side of the spectrum of the color wheel. I try t
o use nor blews, purples -- more blues and purples, versus oranges and red. They have developed now the materials that they use to create the paint is now more durable. And, it lasts a lot longer, against the UV rays, so 20 years ago, a mural would be vibrant for maybe 4-5 years. Now days if you paint with the latest materials that they offer you, it could last a good 7-10 years, very vibrant. So it a pretty good lasting life for a mural. Now because of that, they do
n't sell you those coatings anymore, they don't do the coating. Basically the paint is hard enough to withstand the UV rays of the sun. >> Thank you. Awe so many questions. We're out of time. >> So sorry to go over time. >> We'll give you a short break, we have one for Maureen. Can you please post the link for all to the living new deal site that you introduced in the previous webinar? The attractive map is a great resource for state history standards. >> Yes, indeed, and
I think Tess just put it in there, I want to recommend this website the living new deal. It a great resource and a ton of information about Post Office murals a lot of other aspects about new deal art. And, I did, office I mentioned before I could do a whole presentation on the controversy surrounding these mural, I actually did do a presentation one time. I guess we someone came to that and saw that presentation. And, the living new deal was a great resource for prepari
ng for that. I also want to recommend a website. A Wikipedia site, Tess Porter just put into the chat there, if you're interested in finding out if there is a Post Office mural near you, it a great way to do it. It's got all the states listed in order and the cities and many cases a thumbnail images of the murals. Not all of them are still there as I mentioned. A lot of them have come down over time for different reasons. But, it's just a great sort of easy way to k
ind of figure out a little bit more of the locations and the history of the murals. So thank you for that question. >> There's so many things that I see there, it's amazing. Someone says have you ever used a graffiti removal for a clear coat? I learned that there's a protective mixture, I like to learn more about that. I don't know that. Basically with my murals, the communities where I live, I leave them with a map basically of the colors that we used. So in case t
here is some kind of a graffiti or some toolings going on, it's a lot easier to go back and repaint that area because everything is so flat. Like I said if you use that flat painting, you can remove that piece of graffiti in five minutes because you have the color there. Versus trying to scrape something off and maybe damage it. But I'm so good to know about this graffiti removal thing. I'll need to find out more. Thank you gun for the very positive comments, I can s
ee them all, that's wonderful. >> Do you have a little more energy Rafael? >> Absolutely. Yes, yes. Of course. Any recommendation how to breakdown complex ideas into simple mural visuals? >> That's the hardest part. Good question. You know, I think that one of the harders things for a person -- the hardest thing for a person wanting to create a simple mural. Our brains have a tendency to remain very literal. After all the years of during muralless I want to put so many t
hings in it. I realize I have 25 days. I have kids that have never probably painted before. So you need to stop that and say, how can I just break things down. The best thing for me, my best thing if I let them do this is to start doodling things, start with basic shapes, circles, lines and things, breakdown the shapes that you want into the most basic things. This is going to be very interesting but, here a perfect example. Can I do something like this, I'm going t
o see if I can do it. I use a lot of curves, there's another curve. There's another curve, straight line, straight line. Straight line. Curve, curve, another curve. And then straight line. You know, I just do another curve and a circle and there. You have a bird, right. You can the straight lines here too. So a lot of straight lines and I'll doing this without looking at it. This is a straight line. You can see how I created something in a very, very basic way by j
ust using the most basic things. Curves, streamlines, circles, lines, triangles. When you start having fun with it. You realize, hey, this is what I need to train my brain to do. Not look at the photo, but, what is my mind seeing how I'm picturing it? That's it, that's the tricky part. It's a lot of fun to try. >> I think we've covered all the questions. I'd like to just in one very quick minute show people. So Tes has put the link to the learning lab collection in t
here. And you'll seeing you can see there that we've put everything you saw today including you know, the activity we did, the learning activity, a lot of the murals and the Post Office collection, the supplies list including what type of paint to use, additional museum resources. Then other resources as well. Rafael has made some collections in the learning lap and we have a link to his website here. Also, recommended readings. So take a look at that if you're ina
-- if you're inclined. We can will post the recorded web that are there as well. So I would like to thank both Rafael and Maureen for being here today and Tess and in the background helping us keep it all together. Our sign language interpreter and our captioner, thank you everyone. And to our wonderful audience for being here today. And we look forward to seeing you at the next event in March.
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