Focus on TUSD - May 2008

Under the Sea
Davis, CTP and PCC Students Join Forces to Create Tile Mural
The mural of interconnected undersea life is a lot like the artists who created it.

All during this school year, fifth-graders from Davis Bilingual Magnet Elementary School, teens from TUSD's Community Transition Program and education students from Pima Community College worked together to create the brightly painted tile mural. Fittingly, it will be installed above the water fountain in Davis's main hallway.

The 4-by-6-foot tile mural was unveiled at a celebration earlier this month at Davis, 500 W. St. Mary's Road.

Alma Irigoyen, the Davis art teacher, brought the group members together in a portable classroom on the Davis school grounds. From the start, she had a vision of the artwork they would produce, but the ideas and the work came from group members.

Last fall, they gathered to carry out the theme, which Davis Principal Christopher Loya had chosen from a list that aligned with the science curriculum. The underwater theme was ambitious, the artists discovered, and so they narrowed it, using pictures from books.

They decided on the sizes and shapes of the images, chose colors and then worked on composition to show movement. And after they drew and colored the pictures on paper, they spent more sessions tracing the images onto 6-inch square tiles, picking out the colors and painting the scene. The final step was glazing, firing in the kiln, gluing the tiles to the board and putting grout between the tiles.

Their mural has sea turtles, fish and a sea horse swimming in a blue background with green plants, coral and anemone adding color. A shark moves in on one side. As a signature, anchored at the ocean bottom, a treasure chest bears the names of the artist groups with the years "2007-08" on the lid.

To produce this project, Irigoyen arranged the artists in groups of three – a fifth-grader, a CTP teen and a PCC student – interconnecting the levels of students. "The CTP students are so great with our students," she said. "They're so warm and welcoming. This is hands-on and our kids really respond well to this."

The CTP students attended TUSD schools and are learning additional life skills in their sessions at the PCC West Campus. The PCC students are in classroom management, special education instruction classes and English as a Second Language classes, as well as art.

"We have Pima students here who want to be teachers," said Dan Perino, the CTP director. "The CTP students are providing service for the first time when they've been the recipient of service all their lives."

Fifth-grader Bianca Bryant appreciated help from Cedez Douglas, 18, a CTP student who attended Sahuaro High School. In December, as Bryant colored her coral a fiery orange-yellow, she said, "Cedez tells me how to make my drawing more realistic and to make the shapes curly."

In the same group, Erin Tausch, 22, who has a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona in psychology, but has switched to teaching, said, "This is really great. I've seen a lot of change in the interaction. They were shy at first, now there's more teamwork and bonding. We talk to get to know each other better and we hang out together. It's very beneficial to everyone."

This group found that Tausch was the outgoing one, Douglas was the artist and Bianca was the "sweetheart" who made the project fun.

In addition to the artwork, students learned more about marine life when Franklin Lane, the director of education at the Sonoran Sea Aquarium, came to visit.

"It's important for kids to learn about this because then they're more likely to take care of their environment," Lane said. "This is where it starts. If kids get enamored with this, they'll understand it and protect it."

Lane gave them pointers on sizes and shapes of the fish the artists drew, giving them time to alter the drawing before it was finished.

At the unveiling, Loya, who was pleased with the finished mural, said, "This is fantastic. Having the students here builds our intercultural proficiency. Our students see the differences in people and they learn to respect those differences. That's our mission here"

The mural wasn't the only successful piece of the project. Merry Ireland, who works with the CTP students said, "The skills they learned here are all the ones you need to be successful – listening, taking turns, encouraging and praising, learning when to take a leadership role. They formed bonds on the teams and looked forward to seeing each other."

Irigoyen liked what she saw, too. "After working on this for eight months, this represents our unity toward a common goal," she said. "It shows we can accomplish anything if we put our minds and hearts into it."

-- By Sharon Dunham
Communications & Media Relations

Photos in the May issue by Jes Ruvalcaba of Communications & Media Relations, unless otherwise noted.

The deadline to submit material for the June Focus is Friday, June 13. The Focus will be published Monday, June 23. Email submissions to Chyrl Hill Lander or Sharon Dunham in the Communications & Media Relations Department or use the online Tip Sheet.