Ebonnee Wilson, in front of a section of the mural she created in the Manchester Tutorial Center bathroom. See the full artwork below.

Student Mural Documents Truly Inter-Disciplinary Learning

As the culmination of the year at The Tutorial Center, Ebonnee Wilson and her tutor created a colorful room-sized mural to illustrate Ebonnee’s learning discoveries in art, literature, film, music, sports and history.

The mural project at The Tutorial Center began in response to several empty walls that were in need of a new coat of paint. One of the tutors at the Center and some students came up with the idea of designing and painting a mural. The teacher and students brainstormed and came up with the idea of creating a mural depicting the major figures of the 20th Century in art, music, film, literature, sports and history. The students began to research the period to determine what people, places and events would be included in their mural.

With a scale drawing of their intended subject matter in hand, the mural team contacted Kim Ray, a local mural painter and went to her studio to listen to her advice about how to go about such a large endeavor. Kim not only showed the students a catalog of her work, but she accompanied them to a private home to show them a series of rooms in which she had painted a summer solstice celebration of the faeries.

Clcik on the artwork to see it larger.

Armed with knowledge about how to transpose images from research files to slides to projections on the wall, the students began to compile images and note cards filled with biographical and historical information. Eventually these images were photographed and made into transparent slides that could be projected onto their newly painted wall surface to be traced with white chalk. The painting itself would be done in a variety of media from wall paint to acrylics to ink pens and art markers.

The bulk of the work fell to Ebonnee Wilson and her tutor. Together they spent the better part of a month and a half projecting and tracing images, painting freehand in a color palette chosen by Ebonnee, and painting extemporaneously in some sections of the mural. At the same time, Ebonnee compiled the research materials into a book that would accompany the mural and educate those who viewed the images as to the back-story of each painted scene.
The finished mural was unveiled in a coming-out party on May 24, 2006. Ebonnee conducted tours of the mural explaining both the processes involved and the choices of images. In the end, the mural contained five images in each area – art, literature, film, music, sports and history.

Art included such images as Jackson Pollock’s action painting. This image was actually painted as Pollock himself might have painted – by throwing diverse paints at the wall.

Sports figures included Michael Jordan, Joe Namath and Michelle Kwan.

The literature section included Ebonnee’s favorite book, “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck.

History included such unforgettable images as the space shuttle, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, John. F. Kennedy, Vietnam and Kent State, and the Peace March on Washington D.C.

Asked what she liked most about the mural project, Ebonnee said, “I liked learning the details of these people’s lives. Things I did not know before I began this project. I liked the actual painting too.”

at The Tutorial Center