Mural #50
Solebury School District
Newhope, Pa
Flowers #2,143 - #2,397 of 10,000
Completed June 2022
Chapter 10… Mural #50!
Warning: Contains a gnarly story of wasps, blood and a box cutter got wrong.
What! It doesn’t seem real that we’ve done 50 of these things already but here we are. The last 4 years has been a blur of bright colors, new friends and over 200 gallons paint. The Solebury Highschool in Newhope was the perfect space for this little milestone.
Everyone was so amazing and fun to work with. With such a large installation, we recruited the help of all the other grades in the district, making it the largest number of volunteers for a single workshop! We were rained out the last day but still had four full days of painting for grades 1-12. It was so great to work with students of all ages. The older highschoolers were able to work on ladders, reaching the taller flowers and the younger students had plenty of lower flowers to work on.
This mural has another small milestone. Any large mural like this requires blood, sweat and tears to bring it to life. There where no tears but I was definitely sweating on some of the summer June days and on one of the last days, for the first time, I bled for my art.
I was at the top of a ladder cutting away strips of rubber that were hanging onto the wall. When I pulled a piece away, I was greeted by a very startled wasp nest that quickly started protecting their hive. In my panic to climb down the ladder and swat away angry wasps, I forgot I was holding a new, freshly minted with a new blade, box cutter. When I got to the bottom, I looked down to see that the top of my right wrist was shiny and red. I threw a fist full of blue paper towels on it and ran into the art room. The art teacher, Mrs. Rosenburg was fantastic and quick to call the nurse who got me bandaged up in record time. One trip to the ER and 7 stitches later we were back in business.
The next day I returned back to continue the outlines and clean the blood off the astro turf.
Despite the misunderstanding with the wasps, this was the perfect project to end the school year on. Scars fade but the memories you make working with great people, they last a lifetime. Ughh! Cheesy line but we’re keeping it.
