By Susie Hobart
Lake View Elementary School
Calling all former Lake View students, families and neighbors. We need your help.
This is the brick entrance to Lake View School. It lacks aesthetic appeal and does not tell the story of the successes, the warmth or the welcome waiting inside. We want to change that and need your help.
Did you go to Lake View? Do your children attend school there? Do you live in the neighborhood? In order to welcome families, students, staff and community into our school and give voice to the connection of gardens, woods, wellness, art and environmental literacy, the Lake View PTA is working with Henry Hawkins, renowned local artist, to create a community-focused mural that tells our story.
Picture a four-panel mural installed on the bland, brick and brown side of the school facing Tennyson Lane. Picture the possibilities: children planting milkweed, monarchs dotting the garden, families harvesting tomatoes, cultural farming histories, dads cooking in a solar oven, faces of the neighborhood, laughing children running in the woods, bees pollinating apple blossoms, images of the land before it was a school.
The eco-artistic design will send a clear message about the diversity of our community and its commitment to academic excellence, the arts, health and wellness and the environment, while honoring our culture, history and future.
Hawkins has been meeting with Lake View students, families, and staff to determine the content of the mural and how participants will involve themselves with the outcome. Now we need your voice. You can watch a YouTube video entitled “Lake View Wants a Mural” to see how students have committed to this project. Visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsocZmaVyo or www.power2give.org.
If you have ideas, stories or want to be involved, contact Susie Hobart at 239-7258 or shobart@madison.k12.wi.us or contact PTA President Joel Johnson at nannywbeard@gmail.com.
“The mural movement has been a unique experiment in the possibility of a democratic mass culture that is public, authentic and activist.” This quote from “Toward A People’s Art: the Contemporary Mural Movement,” published in 1977, is a testament to the importance of public art in supporting the values of Lake View’s Welcome to Our Great Green Growing Community and those of the entire Northside community.
For more information on our school garden and outdoor classroom, visit Lake View’s Path to the Outdoor Classroom (http://youtube/AQLDGPwFlno), the Lake View portal at Community Groundworks (www.troygardens.org/content/youth-garden-portal) or www.lakeviewgarden.blogspot.com.