Farmington Students Create Murals For Viewing

FARMINGTON — J.P. Garcia is an aspiring architect who attends Farmington Junior High and he put some of his skills to work on a project earlier this year for his art class.

Using blue duct tape, Garcia created the Chicago skyline, first on a wall in the school’s J building and then he made a larger rendition in the commons area for an art show presentation for Farmington School Board.

Gretchen Wilkes, junior high art teacher, said her students first had to draw their design on paper using a linear perspective and then recreate it on the wall using only blue duct tape. The artwork had two vanishing points and every point in the piece had to match up with the two outer vanishing points.

Garcia’s only art supplies were a ruler and the duct tape.

Garcia said he liked seeing the progression of his artwork and that students and members of the school board were able to see the process of how he created the Chicago skyline with duct tape.

Even as a “little kid,” Garcia said he liked creating and building things. For now, he’s interested in using his skills and interest to study to be an architect.

Wilkes said the duct tape project gives her students experience with creating a mural-style piece of artwork.

One mural completed by Wilkes’ art students is on display at Fayetteville Public Library. Her junior high art club created the mural, called “We Are the Difference,” with the expert assistance of internationally known artist Octavio Logo. Logo has created and painted many murals in the city of Fayetteville.

The 24- foot by 8- foot mural is painted on six pieces of plywood. The students started it in spring 2020 before schools were closed to on- site instruction because of covid-19. That put the project on hold for several months until the students, all wearing masks, could work on it in Logo’s studio in Fayetteville.

Each student who worked on the mural painted a self- portrait and images depicted include a baby being adopted, someone planting flowers to care for the earth, a reminder to vote and the importance of reaching out to others who may be sad or depressed.

The background of the mural is a child coming out of a jar, similar to the story about Pandora’s box.

Back in 2020, Wilkes said that in the story of Pandora’s box, greed, evil and destruction escape when the box is opened but the lid is closed just in time to prevent “hope” from getting out.

The child, stars, flowers and other beautiful colors coming out of the jar and flowing across the sky of the mural represent “hope” for the world, Wilkes said then. “This is supposed to show that children are the hope of the world.”

PHOTOS BY LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER “We Are the Difference.” The girl flying out of the This mural created by the art club at Farmington Junior High School is on display at Fayetteville Public Library. The theme of the mural is jar is to show that children are the “hope” of the world.

J.P. Garcia, a ninth-grader at Farmington Junior High School, finishes up a mural of the Chicago skyline using blue duct tape. His mural was part of an art show for Farmington School Board members at their February meeting. The mural was a project in his art class with art teacher Gretchen Wilkes.

The right bottom corner of a mural created in 2020 by the Farmington Junior High Art Club lists all those involved with the project, including art teacher Gretchen Wilkes and internationally known artist Octavio Logo of Fayetteville.

On a Members of the Art Club at Farmington Junior High School painted self-portraits mural that is now displayed at Fayetteville Public Library.