Making Murals with Albus Cavus
On Saturday, September 14, 2013 In partnership with DC based non-profit, Albus Cavus, our community helped design and paint this mural as a symbol of the creativity, unity and diversity found at Convergence. This mural will serve as an ongoing welcome to those who use our space.
Peter Krsko, Albus Cavus
“At Convergence the invitation is to go deeper in to go further out.” – Rusty Lynn, Visual Artist.
The dream of a mural was initially raised by the young people of the Lab All Ages program at Convergence. The Lab All Ages functions as a mentorship program with volunteers who host a bi-weekly open mic, music showcases, a sound studio and practice space for emerging bands and musicians. Convergence Resident Artist, Christina Perry ran with the idea and approached local mural artists, Albus Cavus with a proposal to launch the project and secured a grant from the Duke Street Trinity Memorial Baptist Foundation.
The project began with a “town hall” style meeting of church members and all Arts Initiative participants, Lab All Ages young people, studio artists, space users, neighbors, etc. We shared with one another and with the artists about our experiences, hopes, dreams and values as a community for what might happen in this space. The artists from Albus Cavus then took our ideas and translated them into a design which they have painted on our wall with help from Convergence participants. We hope it will continue to be a chance to build relationships through conversation and connection around what is deeply meaningful to each person.
Mural Description from Albus Cavus
Located in the entrance hallway of The Lab @ Convergence, the mural is highly visible to all members of the community and one of the first experiences that the new visitors get. The imagery described here was inspired by the comments and suggestions from a community meeting. Some are more literal, some more poetic and metaphorical.
The shape of the space is a challenge for viewing from a distance, but allowed us to experiment with spatial illusion. When a viewer enters the hallway, they are greeted with a large figure of a girl picking and admiring a flower. This central element of the artwork is a call to stop and embrace the beauty and fascinating qualities of the world around us. We have been gifted with awonderful world and we should show appreciation and humility. The additional elements of the mural envelope this figure creating the feeling that as humans we are not isolated from the rest of the universe but are a part of the interconnected network.
The girl’s blue hair flows throughout the entire mural like the motion of a dancer. Imagine placing a small light on a dancer’s arm and then taking a long-exposure photograph of the dancer in a dark room. The resulting natural lines follow appeal to our sense of symmetry and fluidity.
The two other major elements in the mural create “a frame” for the artwork. First, is the arch in the background that appears as a photograph from a telescope and second, the butterflies. The space and stars imagery was inspired from comments that called for going “deeper in and further out.” The allusion to outer space is a literal interpretation of that. However, there is a kind of world explorers do not travel physically, but rather explore the world within as on a microscopic scale. We see this in the pattern in the background that also appears as stained glass windows of the church. In reality, it’s a microscopic representation of plant tissue. These images encourage us to explore the immediate world right here in our hands and be surprised by what we will discover.
The butterflies fly out of the flower in the girl’s hand and flap their wings towards the yellow sun in top right corner. The sun is shaped as a yellow daffodil, a flower abundantly appearing in this region. The butterflies were chosen not primarily for their well-known transformation from a caterpillar into the beautiful flying insect, but mostly because of their color and the fragile and precise design that also gives them strength and fly.
One of the major functions of butterflies in our world is cross-pollination of the plants they fly to. And that’s exactly what collaboration within a community is supposed to be. The resulting idea or a work of art becomes stronger and more beautiful when it is created as a result of fruitful collaboration / cross-pollination. The pollen particles are organized as a necklace around the girl’s neck. Each particle is based on pollen from different plants.
The major elements towards the bottom part of the mural are inspired by the nature of Convergence and the main characteristics of the community. The shell is another example of a perfect natural element, the design is beyond comprehension, yet it is functional as well as beautiful serving as shelter and protection. Convergence reminds us of this function, providing a safe and inspiring home to many.
Next to the shell are two hands: a small baby hand grabbing onto a thumb of a grown hand. Convergence is multi-generational, with strong and friendly relationships developed among people of different ages and experience.
In the middle of the mural we see the actual vibration frequencies of laughter rested behind a sequence of colorful squares and circles that are actually the black and white keys of a piano. This represents the soundtrack of our community that hopefully translates into lives filled with music and color.
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