New Mural Represents World Perspective

Two Edmunds Elementary teachers prepared a special welcome for students and the community for the ribbon cutting and open house at the new Edmunds on Monday August 12th.  Art teacher David Borzo and 3rd grade instructor Michelle Nelson designed and painted a mural with a real “world view:” a 16 foot long, 8 foot tall painting of a world map.  Edmunds’ Principal Jaynette Rittman suggested the project as a way to represent the international makeup of the Edmunds Community. Mr. Borzo and Ms. Nelson then set out to make a unique artistic statement to match the unique character of the school.

They designed the colorful piece to be painted in a technique similar to “Pointillism,” where small dots of paint are applied to the design, that together blend into different colors when viewed from a distance. The difference in the Edmunds Mural is that the teachers only painted with the colors that were used throughout the new building, in order to match the architect’s original view. In fact, the architect for the new school, Vassil Petrov, stopped by during the painting of the mural.  Mr. Petrov met with the teachers/painters and gave them a positive review of the piece and even participated himself, by adding a few dots of color to the artistic view.  Borzo commented that “We were really pleased that Mr. Petrov chose to add a little color of his own to the mural, because it symbolically as well as physically integrates the painting with the architectural vision that he had.” The mural is located in the main atrium entrance of the New Edmunds Elementary, and it will be glassed over at a later date.