Schools

Walled Lake Schools Art Partnership Blooms

A sunflower mural is the latest installation produced by a partnership between the district and the community.

A new sunflower mural that is part of an on-going partnership between Walled Lake Consolidated School District and the community of Walled Lake, is in place in front of the Walled Lake Community Education Center on Pontiac Trail Road in Walled Lake.

The mural was painted by second, third and fourth grade students from Walled Lake Elementary. The young artists were inspired by the sunflower fields in Walled Lake and from a sunflower garden at their school.
 
The boards for the mural were donated by The Corner Car Hop in Walled Lake, an anonymous donor contributed the painting supplies and the installation was done by the Walled Lake Consolidated School District.
 
Lani Werner-Yuen, art teacher at Walled Lake Elementary, said, “The students are so excited to have their artwork on display for the entire Walled Lake community to view and enjoy. It is very important for students to understand how artists can positively impact their community and instill a sense of pride, ownership and social responsibility.”
 
The partnership started this past summer, with the schools participating in the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Inside|Out project, with replica paintings from the DIA placed throughout suburban communities.
 
Students also participated in the Walled Lake Photo Mural Art Project, with photographs of the faces of students and community residents enjoying water were posted throughout the city.
 
Walled Lake Schools art teachers, Cindy Scarpace, Mary Grosvenor and Andrea Novak, volunteered their artistic talents to help paint the "Putting Walled Lake on the Map" mural located across from the public beach in downtown Walled Lake.
 
District art teachers also continued the DIA Inside|Out Project theme through the District’s Summer Art Camp.  Art teachers and students duplicated the Photo Mural Art Project as a sub-project and picked up the sunflower art theme (2011 Walled Lake Green Art project) by making clay sunflowers.
 
In another project currently underway, Jane Culling, Walled Lake Western High School art teacher and her Advanced Placement students are working to bring yet another piece of art to the City of Walled Lake in the Spring of 2014.
 
“Community art begins with one idea, one action one person, but like a stone thrown in the water the circle of the ripple will go far and wide," community promoter Valerie Kemp said. "That one action, giving back to the community, will ripple on the lives of many. This is how our teachers, students and the people in our community make a difference.”


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