The Jag

By Jadynne Brady

Editor-in-Chief

If you’ve walked through downtown Blue Springs recently, you might have noticed a new artistic addition.

Throughout the summer, South students had the opportunity to work on a mural for downtown Blue Springs, through a nonprofit organization called Downtown Alive.

This organization, which is dedicated to the revitalization of Blue Springs, reached out to South art teachers Jeremy Baker and Jaren Avery about the mural. Their goal was and is to revive the downtown Blue Springs area.

While the art teachers have done murals like this in the past, this mural in particular had a focus on the city.

“Mr. Avery and I have kind of done several murals throughout the city,” says Baker. “And they approached us this year about creating a mural that would [give] a revitalization or reimagining of Blue Springs.”

Avery and Baker approached seniors Iris Babcock, Jaycie Watkins, and Echo Clifton-Scherer to head the project.

“I thought it was really fun,” says Babcock. “Sometimes we did have ideas that opposed but you just have to not be stubborn.”

Baker thought that those students were perfect for the task, as all three were able to take criticism as constructive.

“I think that group of people was really solid, because those three individuals are pretty high-level art students, and they’re able to take critique and give critique in positive ways,” says Baker.

In art, Baker finds a high level of importance in being able to take in that criticism and improve.

“When we deal with criticism and art, it’s meant to better the art,” says Baker. “Some people can’t take it that way. Some people take it as a dig on their ability or their work. And these three people were just really good at understanding the positivity of criticism and working together as a collaborative team.”

From those original students, they employed others to help with the project, including senior Piper Jenkins.

“Every day during lunch, I would watch her [Babcock] design it and give her some feedback,” says Jenkins, “And then when it time came to actually paint it, she was like, do you want to paint it? And I was like, Yeah, I’ll join you in painting.”

Other students who helped with the mural were junior Bailey Baier, and seniors Faith Johnson, Jack Robbin, Ellie Simpson, Mikias Sprink, and Jameson Taylor.

Planning a project this size required Baker and Avery to find the safest procedure for the students to work.

“We had to figure out a way to make a mural but not have kids outside on scaffolds and working directly on building.” says Avery. “So, we came up with building panels, and the first one we did … we made it way too big, and it took us the whole summer to do it.”

Almost all the funding came from Downtown Alive, with the various art supplies bought by the Blue Springs School District being reimbursed by the group.

Planning for the students required collaboration with each other to settle on the vision of what the mural would be.

“We went back and forth with ideas and different stuff,” says Babcock, “And then Echo got a finalized version on her iPad down so we could project that onto the huge mural boards. And then, we got together with the bigger group, and we started painting.”

While the students were planning out the mural, Baker and Avery were tasked with getting the supplies, including the four by eight-foot panel that the mural will go on.

“[It was] just getting all the materials, getting all the things in order, making sure our design is solid and approved, and then just trying to provide a space for people to paint,” says Baker.

Then the real work came after the planning, throughout the months of June and July, the students painted the mural in South’s wood shop.

“It was like, every weekday, kind of from like 10 to whenever you could,” says Jenkins. “Come as often as you can and [you] painted as long as you could.”

One of the largest challenges with this project was working with the school district, the city of Blue Springs, and the Downtown Alive group all at the same time.

“That part was definitely the most challenging, because it just becomes a waiting game,” says Avery. “Getting the city and Downtown Alive and the school district kind of lined up was the biggest challenge.”

Babcock found the biggest problem in planning out the mural.

“[The challenge was] the planning,” she says. “Just trying to decide on what things we want to keep and get an actual finalized version. Because also the scales are really different, from our drafting to our huge scale mural that we were doing.”

Other students, including Jenkins, found the physical painting of the mural to be the most difficult.

“I never really painted like a painting. [It’s] not something I do too often. So, it’s definitely out of my comfort zone to try and paint like this whole mural. But it was a fun challenge,” says Jenkins.

Despite the challenges, Babcock found that the attitude of growth and community benefit while working on the mural enjoyable.

“I didn’t feel like it necessarily needed to be like my best work or anything, but I [enjoyed] us working together to make something that was fun and helpful to our community,” says Babcock.

Within the mural, Babcock’s favorite part was all the odes to Blue Springs.

“There’s like a little mouse for Rink Rats that was on,” she says, “And there’s the mascots for Blue Spring South and Blue Springs.”

Painting ended near the end of July, and on October 7, the mural was unveiled in downtown Blue Springs during National Night Out.

Baker sees this mural bringing the community together and hopefully attracting people to the local businesses.

“I think having color and art and something with energy on the walls just exudes out, it helps people kind of feel those emotions. And if you do something interesting enough, it will bring people downtown just to see that,” says Baker.

More than helping the community, it also brings pride to the student artists.

“It’s really big for the kids because they get to see their work out in the public space,” says Avery. “And people love it … they just love seeing kids work.”

And when the time came for the mural to be unveiled, the students finally saw their hard work come to fruition.

“It was so fun to see it unveiled,” says Jenkins. “And it looks so good, and I was really proud to see it from the very rough sketches.”