This month a group of Mills Lawn Skills for Life enrichment students applied their newfound graffiti talent to a public art installment on the soccer wall behind the school.
Graffiti in the school yard, with praise
- Published: May 23, 2011
In an creatively anti-vandalizing way, a group of Mills Lawn students took their spray cans and paint brushes to the school yard this month to repurpose the soccer wall into a work of graffiti art. The wall was created by students of the Skills for Life after school program, whose teachers, urban contemporary design artist London Lee has led them through an exploration of the meaning and techniques of urban art.
The wall features “Skills for Life” painted in big bubble letters with the principles the program aims to promote, including cooperation, respect, responsibility, honesty and personal best. The project is the culmination of two terms of classes, in which kindergarten through sixth graders learned the fundamentals of graffiti lettering, including bubble and block lettering, and incorporated original designs into their own lettered works on canvas. The classes focused discussions on the evolution of urban art, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to contemporary urban murals, and included the distinction between graffiti and vandalism.
Skills for Life program director Bianca Stone helped start the graffiti class over the winter. The second session will close this month, with a group painting on the back side of the soccer wall, which will read, “Mills Lawn School.”
Skills for Life students proudly held up their own graffiti art on the Mills lawn.
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.