St. Joseph’s Community College, Charlestown, 2024
This BLAST residency was carried out in Spring of 2024 together with a group of Transition year students at St. Joseph Community College in Charlestown, Co. Mayo.
I met with transition year co-ordinator, art teacher and principal at the outset to discuss a potential focus for the project and it was agreed that they wanted a mural that could illustrate the school ethos and values.
The project then continued through regular visits to the school moving through ideation, an initial exploration of potential ideas to planning and design stage and finally to the painting of the mural. Students learned about various approaches to mural making from political murals of northern Ireland to the abstract work of Mazza. Refining visual ideas for how to represent the school ethos involved visual research including a walk in the town, photography and the students contributing images found online. Various ideas were explored through drawing and painting.
Arriving at the final design required ongoing discussion with the students and ongoing communication and collaboration with their inspirational art teacher Sinéad Murphy throughout the duration of the project.
For the final process of painting the mural, students worked in groups of two addressing different elements. It was helpful that the mural was painted on boards which could be worked on separately and then finally, brought together on the wall for the final piece.
Students explored visual ideas through drawing and painting. The colour scheme was an important consideration to be able to bring unity to the various parts of the mural design. In the photograph here – exploring colour gradiant.
Design Stage
Planning the mural involved a process of visual research and discussion to arrive at the various elements required to represent the school ethos.
Use of digital technology in design stage
It was helpful to bring the evolving image into digital form. This involved taking a photograph of the mural at different stages of evolution as the design progressed. Through the application procreate we were able to explore different possible colour combinations and design on a final approach.
Final mural image:
This is the final mural image as it now hangs in the corridor of St. Josephs’ Community College.
A big congratulations to all of the transition year students involved in this project and Sinéad Murphy their art teacher who was so supportive and skillfull in helping to bring the project together. To complete the mural required extra time and effort and it is a wonderful achievement for all involved.
Wishing the students every success in the future
Ethos Mural*
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