Saturday, October 30th: WE'RE PAINTING A MURAL!!

On Saturday the Bryn Mawr Mural Arts Class held their Community Paint Day at the mural wall on Health Center #4. The day brought together folks from Bryn Mar College, Parkway West High School, Health Center 4, and the surrounding community to start painting the mural!

The day officially started at 11 and ended at 2pm, but no one wanted to put down their brushes when the day was over. Anyone could help paint the mural, all you needed was a brush and to follow the 'paint by number' set-up of the wall. In addition to working on the mural wall there was face painting, pumpkin painting, chalking, oral histories, food, and music to keep everyone entertained. 

The day was a great success and everyone is excited to see the rest of the mural come together!

Turquoise, Nadine, and Latasha working on the mural.

Thanks to Myiesha for letting everyone wipe their hands on her shirt!

Nadine helped to supervise younger painting volunteers and make sure they (attempted) to stay inside the lines.

Jomaira and Sarah who come to SSB on Wednesdays and Fridays came out to help paint!

Jomaira

Katie & Melinda who come to SSB Mondays and Friday were there!

Myiesha and her little sister work on orange & red.

Turquoise & Jomaira

Crystal was hard at work on the blue portion of the mural and wasn't phased by the paint she got in her hair!

Nadine, Adrienne, & Latasha eating lunch.

Ramire showed up just in time to paint some of the taller parts of the mural, taking over for Jody Cohen.

Marc, Turquoise, and Aaron show off the t-shirts they designed!

Taylor with Marc and the t-shirt they worked on together

Ramire, Crystal, Aaron, Turquoise, Latasha, and Nadine from Parkway.

End of the day! The BMC Mural class and the Parkway students still at the site.

Monday, Oct 25th: T-SHIRTS!!/Future planning

Thanks to the VERY hard work of the college students who come to Parkway on Mondays (plus Ariel) we were able to cut out all the stencils that the students designed last week and spray paint t-shirts for the paint day. Thanks to everyone (Amanda, Taylor, Adrienne, Katie, Ariel, and Charlene) for all their work cutting the stencils and helping to spray paint! 

The shirts came out wonderfully and we hung up the spray-painted stencils in the classroom afterwards. 

Dominque, Sharaya, and Nadine's stencils before painting

Taylor & Adrienne spray-painting outside the school.

Ariel helping to hold things together (literally). 

T-shirts drying!

Brittany!

Michelle I., Taylor, & Marc

Talking with Brittany about her college essay about a person who inspired her: Fantasia. 

I believe the prompt was "the face you will make when Dominique graduates!" and this is what you get....

Amanda & Katie cut last-minute stencils. 

Nadine and Charlene talked about college plans and the essay.

While one group of students worked outside and completed their shirts using the stencils they designed last week, the other group worked on completing and organizing their college folders. Each folder consisted of a check list and basic questions that would help students ask the right questions as they moved forward in the process.Of the the three students I worked with, two focused on revisingtheir college essays and with the other I explored her reasons for wanting to join the air force. -Charlene

Brittany, again!

Taylor with the stencils after they were sprayed.

Friday, Oct 22nd: Paint Day Publicity

Today in class we focused on the upcoming paint day on October 30th for the mural on Haverford Ave. We started to discuss different ways of advertising for the event and colored in flyers to post around school, the mural site, and the neighborhood. Some specific businesses and locations have expressed interest in posting the flyers and many students said that they were trying to get their friends and their family members to join them in painting the mural. There seems to be a lot of excitement around the event and although a lot of students weren't in class today, those that were seemed to enjoy taking it easy and coloring posters while having some great discussions. 

Paint Day flyer designed by Rachel Stephens from the Mural Arts Class

We also reflected on the Parkway students' experiences at Bryn Mawr yesterday and the impact of hearing from three students from the First Person documentary. When asked how they liked their day on our campus, everyone responded positively and spoke about what they took away from hearing from the director and the students from the film. Everyone, both college students and high school students alike, said how much they enjoyed coming together for an interesting and thought provoking day on Thursday.