Flight 93 Mural Nears Completion

The sixth grade students at Chardon Middle School moved a little closer this week to the completion of their Flight 93 mural. Last week students painted the boards which served as a color code for their work this week as cut and rounded glass of many colors was glued to the boards. Very exciting! Perhaps the most interesting part of the process was how many staff members and former students came to our classrooms to see the progress. The word that seemed to come up the most was "cool." Indeed! Our class worked on Wednesday, but when I came back to school on Thursday morning it seemed like the boards gleamed even brighter than when I left the previous afternoon. The colors on the mural are brilliant. Blues, reds, whites, greens, etc. Something unanticipated happened this week as well. We had planned to place the completed murals in an unused outdoor space. However, our artist Augusto Bordelois has been making more trips around our building as his visits have increased. He has spotted several hallway spaces that might make a better permanent home for the murals. Several teachers have echoed the same thought. And then one of our social studies teachers came up with a really novel idea. He feels that before the murals find their permanent home we should have them on temporary display throughout Chardon. Interesting thought if not the most practical as the murals are heavy. I'm learning a lot about public art. Yesterday I read some 30 murals that have been housed in the former TRW building on Euclid Avenue in Euclid may be demolished along with the building when a new developer takes possession. What a loss. The murals depict Americans at work and date back over 50 years. I hope such a future never awaits our murals. One of the lessons Augusto taught the students was just this. What would the students say to their children or grandchildren many years from now when they viewed the murals? And if we move the murals to an indoor space what will an accompanying plaque say that is proper and fitting? Decisions.