BERLIN — The new mural planned for Stephen Decatur Park will be painted on the fitting Take Pride in Berlin Clean-Up Day of Saturday, April 26.
The winning design, which was revealed earlier this month, is a combination of elements for nine student submitted pieces of artwork. But mural artist Ann Ashman said this week that every student should be able to easily recognize what they put into the project.
“There really wasn’t any one winner. No one entry really covered all of the unique aspects of Berlin so what we did is there was somewhat of a common thread between all of the entries, the historic buildings, a tree in the park, some of the events like the bathtub race or the fiddler’s contest so what we did is combine the best elements from those entries,” she said. “The students should be able to recognize their artistic contributions.”
As the professional supervising artist, Ashman explained her job was to tweak the design to make the combined elements work as a united whole.
“I helped by putting it together with lay-out, what’s in the distance, the foreground, what things will look good when you’re up close playing tennis or whatever right by the racquetball court or if you’re just parking your car or driving by. It should look good both ways,” she said.
A professional artist for 12 years, examples of work that Ashman has either created or participated in are readily visible all over Berlin including the mural on Boomer’s and the artwork inside of both Tex-Mex Country Cookin’ and Si’culi. The park mural is going to be a larger undertaking than some of those previous works.
“It’s large. It’s 70 feet long and 14 feet high so we’re going to need some equipment,” said Ashman.
Luckily, a high volunteer turnout is expected especially from the students who submitted artwork for the event from Stephen Decatur High School. Ashman also hopes that the painting process will catch the attention of residents who will already be participating in Take Pride in Berlin Week. One other group that she’d love to see turnout would be any of those who worked on the original mural.
“It’s going to be a nice community gathering. We’d like to get the kids together who did the original mural to kind of hand over the paintbrush,” she said.