I've been a muralist for a long time. I came into this line of work in my early 20's because a friend needed to finish a restaurant mural before Christmas and I needed the money. This friend and I ended up working together for 12 years. In that time, I rose in rank from lowly grunt worker, onto chief assistant and finally project supervisor. One of my favorite parts of the job was collaborating with other artists to make a beautiful and cohesive piece of art. I began to realize that the lessons I was learning during the muraling process could be carried over into other areas of life...like: learning how to be adaptable, how to combine individual ideas into a cohesive whole and how to resolve differences. When my husband and I met, I began working with him...after a while, I really missed the gifts, strengths and insights that came with creating murals. As Creative Director of Sublime Signs LLC - I have been integrating Creative Journal Expressive Arts and my mural creation and supervision expertise into a type of creative collaboration program. I have facilitated people as young as 6 and as old as 75 in this process and I am amazed that even those who have never drawn a picture, collaborated with others or painted before end up collaboratively developing and painting AMAZING murals.
The above mural was envisioned by a group of parishioners from Capitol Hill Nazarene in OKC.
This is a segment of a large mural that was developed for the Respect Diversity Foundation's tenth anniversary, located at the Oklahoma Science Museum (Omniplex). Over one hundred students contributed ideas & images. For four days, students of all ages came in small groups to paint the 300 + square foot mural. See more beautiful murals and learn more about this rewarding team building process here.
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