Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102220020
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOBBIE SLOUGH/ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"One day I was driving by the park and saw the wall."
"The wall" was the end of Norwich Park Gymnasium in Southwest Roanoke, but Brandt saw it as a huge, half-circle of potential.
Brandt is a counselor with Sanctuary, Roanoke City's crisis intervention center for young people. Outreach is the non-resident part of the Sanctuary program. At the time, Brandt was working through Outreach with a teen-ager who was interested in art. It just happened that he passed the Norwich Gym on his way to meet with this particular kid. "That's when the idea came to me," Brandt said.
"The idea" was for a mural that would involve the Outreach young people as well as kids from the Norwich community. After stacks of paper work, approval by the Norwich community and about 60 hours of painting, the finished mural was dedicated Oct. 29.
Long before painting began, however, Brandt took the idea to Robbie Muse, an artist and art therapist who works with the Sanctuary program. Muse, a muralist with works in Baltimore and Greeley, Colo., designed the painting after listening to Brandt's ideas.
"It basically tries to show the graduation of life," Muse said, "the whole continuum." The mural depicts the Earth in the foreground, and, beyond that, outer space.
Because such a project had never been proposed before, Brandt said, the process of getting approval for the painting took several months. Once it was approved by the city, Brandt and Muse took their proposal before the Norwich community as well. Their goal was to turn the mural into a combined effort between the Outreach participants and young people in the Norwich community.
Pat Toney, an active Norwich resident, helped coordinate neighborhood involvement. "I enjoyed seeing children do something constructive," Toney said. "They had a good turnout, and all the kids who were there enjoyed it."
In all, about 12 young people participated in the mural. Muse supervised their work throughout the project. Each of the young people worked at least two hours a day for a month on the painting, and each of them learned something more than artistic technique.
According to Brandt, the painting was the first chance for most of the Outreach participants to "work on such a big project to beautify the community. . . . Most kids would never get involved with something that big."
For Norwich residents and Outreach participants alike, painting the mural was truly a big undertaking. Both groups of young people learned a great deal about community involvement and cooperation, while turning a blank wall into a work of art.
by CNB