Memorial Mural at PS 161 for Maria Kelly
Note on method and materials: The mural was conceived originally as a tribute wall for Maria; three panels of the brick wall of the courtyard were set aside to be worked on, each a square 5 feet by 5 feet. In the first part of the planning, through school administrators and Jackie of Harlem Dowling, I asked students attending PS 161, as many as possible and especially those who had known Maria, to create their own images of remembrance on square pieces of paper, using pen, pencils, crayons, markers, or other media. The response was overwhelming, with over a hundred students offering their visions—especially frequent images were sunflowers (Maria’s favorite flower), other flowers of different colors, turtles (Maria had a red-eared slider at home and loved all turtles and tortoises), rainbows and butterflies (other Maria favorites), bumble bees, animals more generally, and natural outdoors park and woodland settings. Many students imagined sunrises, sunsets, and brilliant skies; some pictured Maria herself, but most pictured themselves, animals, sometimes classmates, and landscape. The “outdoors” feel of most of the pictures was notable, as was their brilliant color and devotion to animals.
In brainstorming sessions organized by Jackie for me with the 6th and 7th graders who remembered Maria, some themes and sayings popped up as well: all students had anecdotes of moments with Maria—some happy, some sad—and some of the many encouraging sayings they wanted to pass on belonged to their ideas about Maria and her influence on them: “Magic powers,” “Be strong!” “Be you!” “You grow every day!” in both English and Spanish. Jackie went over the plants of the garden with me, including vegetables and herbs; others at the school added Maria’s love of lavender and other plants.
To include as many of the ideas as possible, I originally imagined including the actual images drawn by students, and creating an image of Maria from them in a grid fashion; this did not work out in the end, and instead of an intricate grid filled with images, I settled on creating a central panel that would name the garden, plus two side panels that would indicate the ground and the sky as seen from within a forest or wood, with animals, plants, and some children included.
The central panel used a gold circle through which we “see” an extensive outdoor landscape with water, land, and an island in the distance.
Alex and the school staff made sure the brick wall panels were clear and primed in white. I then covered them with a light blue sky color, a series of green overlays for the woodland panel, and dark blue-purple for the night trees panel. The woodland panel looks down at the ground (and in the distance, the edge of the wood was shown); the central panel looks straight out into the distance; the nighttime panel looks up through the tree branches.
A final image was added during painting to the nighttime scene: Ms. Williams, a friend of Maria’s still working at the school, contributed a beautiful drawing of a dreamcatcher, which I couldn’t help but add, dangling it from a tree branch; Silvia Romero, assisting with painting as an intern, realized the image brilliantly on the panel in full color.
I hope that the result will last many years, standing guard over Maria’s garden in the courtyard, and helping all to remember her joy and love for the school and its people.