It’s been a busy few months for the High School Art Club.
This past summer, before the school year had even started, club members congregated at a crumbling concrete wall off Genesee Street nestled between the rear of Park Theatre and a little-used municipal parking lot.
In the span of a couple days, club members transformed the sad strip of concrete into a giant paint-by-number highlighting prominent points of interest in Avon: Tom Wahl's, the Five Arch Bridge and Howlett and Charlton farms.
Gabrielle Koehler partnered with senior Gretta P., sophomore Olivia N. and other club members to come up with the mural’s design, which presents the four locales in the style of Polaroid snapshots.
Koehler, who graduated this past summer and is now studying psychology and English at Rochester Institute of Technology, said they went through a lot of different ideas before settling on a final design.
“We created a lot of thumbnail sketches while brainstorming our ideas. For instance, I created a design that centered around the Avon Winter Spectacular,” said Koehler. “There were a lot of other designs that featured cows, Tom Wahl’s and parts of nature. However, we thought that the designs we chose would work well with the paint-by-numbers style of the mural - a part that we felt was important in increasing community involvement.”
While Tom Wahl’s and the Five Arch Bridge were no-brainers, Koehler said the decision to feature Howlett Farms, a large grain-seller on East River Road, and Charlton Farms, a Bed & Breakfast and wedding venue off East Main Street, came a little later.
“Gretta came up with the idea to paint a baby cow with a butterfly on it, and I ended up liking it so much that I wanted to create my own version of it,” she said. “As a result, as a club we decided that including Howlett and Charlton Farms would be a good way of incorporating our designs, the farming life of Avon and two new locations all at once.”
Club members’ efforts culminated July 9 during a dedication ceremony and celebration, one of several organized by Livingston County’s Economic Development Office that month as part of its LivCo Walls Mural Festival to create public art in each of the county’s nine villages.
“Even babies and puppies were able to get a hand or paw print on the mural,” said Liz Patteson, a high school art teacher who also serves as club advisor. “The art club truly designed this one on their own to really fit in the Avon community. My students were fantastic at helping community members get the right paint and paint in a spot that suited their level of skill and confidence. The end product was really successful.”
Ella O., a junior who joined the club at the end of last school year, said club members met at night and used a projector to display an outline of the mural, which they then traced onto the wall. The next morning, club members returned to the wall to firm up the outlines, mix paint and get the mural to a point where members of the public could paint sections of it in.
“After the festival, we finished the spots that weren’t filled in and finally could call it done,” said Ella. “It was really cool to see something I had worked for so many hours on finally come to life.”
Olivia N., who helped run the club’s face-painting both the day of the festival, said seeing the finished mural was uplifting.
“It was nice to know that people could enjoy what we created,” she said. “And I loved seeing the children’s faces light up when I painted their faces. The smiles made it all worth it.”
After bringing the Polaroid mural through to fruition, club members weren’t content to sit back and rest on their laurels - quite the opposite, in fact.
‘A statement piece’
In the fall, the club began work on a mural at the Avon Driving Park, on a long exterior wall of the Skate Shack next to the park’s new skating rink.
Patteson said club members were excited at the prospect of creating a mural at the Driving Park, which is also known as the Avon Downs for the horse racetrack that was built there in the 1830s.
“The Downs brings back memories of little league and sledding for them,” Patteson said. “It is also a lot more visible than the community mural we had previously done.”
Members of the public got a first look at the almost-finished mural at the Avon Holiday Spectacular last month and it was officially unveiled during a Dec. 18 ceremony.
Ashley Comeau, who chairs the Avon Holiday Spectacular committee, said a fellow committee member saw the quality of the club’s work in the Polaroid mural they made over the summer and decided to reach out to see if they’d be interested in creating another one on the Skate Shack.
The shack, which marked its 50th anniversary this year, had been in disrepair for quite some time, said Comeau, and was being used primarily for storage.
“When the Avon Holiday Spectacular received a grant from the Livingston County Economic Department for the ice skating rink, we knew we needed the rink to live in Avon, outside of the event,” she said. “We inspected the building and felt that with some volunteer hours, we could bring it back to life, which is exactly what we did.”
The design process for the shack mural was collaborative, said Comeau, with the club pitching different ideas and members of the committee providing feedback.
The final version that now adorns the Skate Shack features a seasonal motif. Pumpkins and blowing fall leaves dominate the left side of the shack before giving way in the middle to snowflakes and, appropriately, a pair of ice skates tied together at the laces. The mural finishes the seasonal cycle on the far right side of the shack with a vibrant thicket of spring and summer flowers and a pair of colorful butterflies.
“There have been MANY comments from people around town congratulating the Art Club and stating how the whole project really saved the building,” said Comeau, who also chairs the village of Avon’s Parks Commission. “This is the first thing you see when entering the Driving Park main facilities, so it's a beautiful welcome now. Previously, it was a very sad looking building that people kind of overlooked - now it's a statement piece.”
Abby S., who joined the art club as a freshman last year and now serves as club treasurer, helped design the Skate Shack mural and is hoping to add to it in the spring.
“Adding more leaves in the air and a pile as well as a transition from snowflakes to ladybugs - I think these elements would bring more movement and fill the space nicely,” she said.
In addition to the Skate Shack, Abby worked on the Polaroid mural off Genesee Street this past summer and helped create a mural that currently adorns the front-facing panels of a staircase near the art room in the high school.
While her personal artwork tends toward realism, Abby said murals demand more simplified designs, which can be a challenge.
“My personal work is typically based on realism, so being handed the challenge of painting a whole flower with only four colors was difficult for me,” she said. “You also have outside factors such as the weather and texture of what you're painting on as well and you can't just work on it whenever, it has to be planned well.”
There’s also the reality that murals, by definition very large artworks, demand a lot of time and, in the club’s case, require members to work together as a team both while designing and creating the mural. Even given the extra challenges, Ella O. said it’s worth it to see the finished product in such a public setting.
“I think it's very cool to see my work in the community because it's interesting how many different people will see it,” she said. “I also like how the murals connect people and groups in the community.”
The club’s future plans are up in the air at the moment. Patteson said they may take on a project in Mrs. Rebecca Rio’s classroom while Abby said club members may look to create one in the style of book spines on a staircase near the High School Library.
Or maybe they’ll do neither and instead focus on individual projects for a while. That flexibility is something Abby, Ella and Olivia like most about the club.
And even though she’s graduated from Avon, Koehler said she cherishes the memories she made during her time with the club.
“Designing the mural and helping paint the faces of kids at the festival was incredibly rewarding because I got to see both my friends and people who enjoyed our art smile,” she said. “Whether it's painting faces at homecoming or creating cards for fundraisers, art club is filled with amazing people who enjoy the time they spend together. If you're not quite sure you want to join, try it out! You can come as little or as often as you like.”
Photos courtesy of Liz Patteson and Yearbook Club
Members of the High School Art Club and of the broader Avon community are shown working on the club’s mural off Genesee Street this past summer. Club members designed the mural in a paint-by-number style as a way of involving the community in its creation.
Photos courtesy of Liz Patteson and Yearbook Club
Members of the High School Art Club work on their mural on an exterior wall of the Skate Shack at the Avon Driving Park. The mural features a seasonal motif and was officially unveiled during a ceremony in December.