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- Participants at the Choice Block Party, May 2017
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- This family made a heart during a block party the school hosted.
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- Completed on Sept. 8
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- Reporter Jeff Chew is setting up to film our mural dedication on June 14, 2018
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- Detail of some blue hearts.
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- Here I am, beginning installation of the mural.
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- Kids in Scotland made hearts for us in an after-school program.
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- Tara made this heart to honor her late father.
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- Lincoln City mosaic artist Joanne Daschel held open studios and I picked up 100 hearts in December 2017.
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- A student, Evelyn, painted two silhouetted figures onto the mural. The one on the other side is holding a butterfly net.
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- I laid out the hearts on the ball court to get a sense of how to place them, and whether my crackpot idea was going to work.
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- 101 hearts were made in Lincoln City, OR
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- Nature illustrator Nora Sherwood made a heart. And I bought a print of one of her drawings.
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- Students are not allowed on scaffolding, but I got a little bit of help on the purple hearts.
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- One of the students helping with the installation in Shelton, WA.
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- Laticrete thinset is the best!
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- Reuben volunteered to help on his birthday!
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- Installing the first Diversity Mural at Choice H.S.
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- This one is from Kim Grant in Australia.
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- Evelyn painted this kid holding a butterfly net to make the whole design feel more complete.
In 2012, I approached Choice High School hoping to work with students to create a large mural on a blank exterior wall on the school, located in downtown Shelton, WA:
We weren’t able to figure out a plan for the mural, but I was offered a job working with students one day each week. Finally, in January 2018, we started creating a mural for this wall, which began as a response to the shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, but is mainly a celebration of diversity .
The students at Choice have been making hearts, and I’ve facilitated public events where the regional community has helped create mosaic hearts. Best of all, we’ve received mosaic hearts from all over the world!
As of September 8, 2018, the mural is completed! We do still plan to re-paint the wall, and to tidy up the grout. For now, I attempted to “artfully smear” the grout and blend it together to enhance the rainbow. Hopefully, we’ll be able to paint a light sky blue around everything in spring of 2019.
The mural can be viewed at:Â
Choice High School, 807 Pine St. Shelton, WA 98584
Reporter Jeff Chew made a short video about the project as installation was beginning,:Â https://youtu.be/WvMTftgJ6mw
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