Kayleen ’25, plans to make a community mural, showcasing diversity through art.
Over the last two years, with the help of the CSGC grants, I’ve contributed two murals to my town’s growing collection chain as part of the Hopkinton Cultural Council mural project. Each of these murals represented a different identity or culture. In my freshman year, I painted an Ofrenda, showing a holiday celebrated in Mexico. Last year I covered the topic of neurodiversity and autism. This year, I would like to go beyond just a single identity. I want to create a mural that brings together the community and celebrates everyone’s different opinions in a unique and fun manner.
My plan for this year is to make a community mural, one that the people of the community can collaborate to make. The mural shall be a field of flowers painted by different community members. These painters range from young to old, professional artists to people who’ve never even picked up a paintbrush, and different countries and different cultural backgrounds. The painting of flowers can represent many things. The color, the species, and the way it is drawn all give insight into who the painter is. Through this mural, I can bring together different members of the community to collaborate on a fun project and show how beautiful diversity can be.
So far I have communicated with my town council about the idea and have put up posters around town promoting the project. Several people have responded to me with interest and I am in the process of creating a design and coordinating the painting of the mural. In the coming month, I will begin the painting process and wrap up the mural.
