An inviting addition: Amherst College students creating new mural at Senior Center featuring the diversity of town’s elders
Published: 11-14-2024 4:29 PM |
AMHERST — Represented on a mural taking up an entire wall in the Senior Center lounge at the Bangs Community Center, an Amherst senior citizen is shown portraying singer Elvis Presley, with musical notes flowing from his guitar displayed against a rainbow, and traveling skyward from below a large maple tree.
“I had to pose for it,” says Lee Williams of his participation in creating the large mural, which is in the final stages of being painted by more than a dozen Amherst College students. “But I didn’t have to put on the jumpsuit, cape and scarf. That would have been way too much.”
Williams is one of several Amherst elders whose images are included in the semester-long project of the Public Art and Collaborative Practice class taught by Lucia Monge, assistant professor of art. The project brings ideas for what should be included in the mural from each of those in the class at the beginning of the school year, to a finished product, with several hours of actual painting, by the end of the semester.
Leigh Banner, a junior majoring in art history, said she appreciates that many art classes involve painting in a solitary way, but this one brings many students together on a joint project.
“I saw this during registration, and had never done a painting on this scale before, and never been in such a collaborative setting,” Banner said. “Learning how to be in a collaborative environment means to compromise and work together. You’re definitely working with a different part of the brain.”
Banner said being at the Senior Center is also reminiscent of a time in high school meeting with individuals with dementia, and she has enjoyed getting to talk and interact with senior citizens in town.
That has also been inspiring for other students.
“We loved meeting with seniors, and it’s been awesome watching this come to life,” said Claire Holding, also a junior at the college.
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Holding said the project began with students making individual mural designs, then modifying these in small groups and finally coming together as an entire class for a final design. Using a grid system drawn onto the wall, the students then translate the mural design from the laptop, turning the digital art into real-world art.
The class also included a field trip to Holyoke to see murals in the city, in addition to brainstorming and meeting with senior citizens and Senior Center Director Hayley Bolton, Holding said.
As the mural is being painted, with Holding getting onto a ladder to paint the large tree, many of the students look at their cellphones to show precisely where they should be applying paint inside the boxes on the grid.
Monge said the class worked with the college’s Center for Community Engagement to identify the site for the mural after a previous class did a similar project inside a campus building. “We’ve been coming all semester, practically holding class here twice a week,” Monge said.
“This class is interested in forms of art made outside of museums and galleries and that involve the public more broadly,” Monge said. “It’s exciting and fruitful to make art with other people.”
But the mural is not one individual’s art, with students bringing in their own expertise, with some better at drawing people and others better at doing landscapes.
“The challenge is how do we find consensus, exchange ideas and represent shared ideas,” Monge said.
Much of the mural focuses on the natural environment, including the Connecticut River and the surrounding mountain ranges, as well as the voices of the senior citizens who wanted to be depicted, including at least two others who asked to be drawn in the mural.
“They want to be presented as active people, dancing, exercising, bicycling, and also wanted to see the intergenerational connections,” Monge said.
The rainbow reflects the Rainbow Coffee Hour, the LGBTQIA+ social coffee group that gathers monthly at the Senior Center. There is also diversity in the people, showing the diversity of the community.
In addition to the collaborative skills, the students are learning to use mural paint, such as mixing the colors and attempting to get the right matches for skin tones. There is also effort on creating texture, making sure blue jeans worn by one of the figures in the mural aren’t just blue, but appear to actually be made from denim, and that the dark red color showing the exterior of the Bangs Center is made of bricks, using acrylic pens to do this.
Bolton said she was elated about the project when approached by the college, knowing the lounge needed to be livened up with a splash of color on the gray walls.
“All the folks coming into the lounge have remarked how bright and welcoming the space looks, that it’s more inviting,” Bolton said. “The impact has led to seniors feeling more visible, more connected to the center. It’s been incredibly transformational.”
Bolton adds that it also represents Amherst’s diversity and is, for her, a symbol of good things to come.
A formal reception for the completed mural, which doesn’t yet have a name, will take place Dec. 10 from 9 to 11 a.m.
Williams said he will be back for that ceremony, and at that time may come as the King of Rock and Roll, with the encouragement of the students.
“They want me to dress up for the unveiling, to get my gear on,” Williams said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.