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AES unveils mural more than a year in the making
By Chris Mac Kenzie
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — “It’s absolutely beautiful!” “It’s gorgeous!” “They’ll
treasure it for many, many years.” “We’re so proud of it.”
These enthusiastic comments are describing the tile
mural gracing the west outer wall of the Alpine Elementary
School library. This colorful and inspiring work, titled Reach
for Your Dreams has been more than a year in the creating. Every
child who attended that school last year, some 475 of them, had
a part in it, as well as the 50 staff members, teachers and art
docents. Each one painted a leaf shaped tile and then inscribed
it with his or her own special dream for the future.
The mural, 30 feet across at its widest part, and 17
feet high, was designed by Miro Davis, an Alpine artist and
sculptor, who learned her skills at a college in Canada. It
depicts two figures in bright blue tile against a background of
a symbolic American flag. They are climbing and reaching for the
heavens filled with yellow stars, a sleepy quarter moon and the
setting sun. The left side shows a huge tree trunk, with the
title on its trunk, and its roots embedded in the earth,
The tree has shed its leaves which are the leaf tiles
spaced across the sky. Davis created the rest of the pieces to
express this message of hope and vision for the future. Embedded
in the beautiful masterpiece are all sorts of things symbolic of
Alpine and California, birds, butterflies, cactus, poppies,
little fish swimming in a sparkling glassy lake, small animals,
a coyote and more. It takes hours of studying the mural to
discover all the hidden magic.
To add beauty and excitement are hundreds of glass
beads outlining the figures, bits of mirror and sparkling
luminescent glass fragments, carefully cut by Cindy Vesia who
creates stained glass art pieces. The effect is not only
breathtaking but meaningful, both for the children and adults.
The process was time consuming and demanding. The
school’s 14 art docents helped the youngsters to understand the
philosophy and symbolism of the mural. After the wet clay was
spread out for the child to cut out in the shape of a leaf, (1st
graders settled for just an irregular shape), the docent
suggested they think about their dream for the future, and write
it in the wet clay.
Next came the first coat of glaze so the tile could be
fired by Kathy Zanot, who has been an inspiration for the art
program in all of Alpine’s elementary schools. Later a second
coat and another firing.
The docents and dozens of volunteers, more than 80 of
them, both men and women at various times, now took over the
job, gluing the tiles to sections of board, combining the
sections, mounting them on the wall, adding the grouting and
polishing, with much of the work done from scaffolding. Debbie
Sakarias acted as project manager, recruiting workers and
checking for supplies.
Not an inexpensive project, the money to pay for it was donated
by the PTA, the school, individuals like parents and friends,
and businesses like Superior Surfaces which supplied much of the
needed materials.
A beautiful as it is, the real joy in the mural is to
read the dreams expressed by the students. They inscribed their
tiles with their hopes for the future, what they wanted to
become as adults or for how they wanted the world to be. Many of
the tiles asked for peace and freedom for all nations.
The younger students, first graders when they painted
the tiles, did not write yet, so they drew pictures of their
dreams, a baseball and bat, a car, a horse, puppy dog, and the
like. The older ones inscribed their wishes,a trophy truck
driver, oceanographer, policeman, firemen, football player,
Yellowstone Park ranger, vet, singer, pilot, contractor,
teacher, horse back rider, artist, scientist and many more.
Some youngsters added details, scribing things like — I
want to be a second grade teacher, learn to play the piano, be
animals’ best friends, see snow, to cure children with cancer,
learn about the moon, be the boss of the universe, and the
inspiring, “I want to soar to high heights.”
We cannot help but believe that the future is in good
hands when we read the wonderful dreams of Alpine’s children.
Cutline: This hard working crew, art
docents at Alpine Elementary School, supported by Rick Miller,
school principal, posed proudly in front of the beautiful tile
mural on the west wall of the school’s library. Not only did
they struggle with wet clay, paint, glaze, leaf patterns, glue,
grouting and mounting boards, but they inspired the students to
Reach for Your Dreams. Left to right, they are Debbie Williams,
Cindy Vesia, Miro Davis, chief designer, Debbie Sakarias, Joyce
Nygaard, Jan Peckham, and Rick Miller, Not present for the photo
was Tina Dooley.
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Christy Scott
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