Artist's Journal 3-7-07

Artist’s Journal

Morton Brown

3.7.07

I decided to switch gears a little bit this week. From the couple of responses I received from the first design submission, I started thinking about alternate ways of depicting some of the themes of our mural. At any rate, I still have the previous design and may revisit it but I wanted to take a step to the left as I explore this project.

The design you see before you is about the future of Conway-symbolized by children at play. I plan to make subtle references to Conway’s history in the toys, costumes and actions of these children. For instance, the children that reside in the lower left corner of the painting are going to be playing inside a large model train diorama. I am planning to incorporate model buildings that represent the three main colleges in town, as well as some other historical landmarks such as the Conway Courthouse.

I also want the children to be playing dress up, and plan to have each of them wearing oversized costumes that will represent some of Conway’s founding figures and/or symbolize the passage of time through key archetypes from various important periods from Conway’s past: Currently, there is a kid in a train conductor’s hat in the lower middle of the picture who holds a model train. I plan to use actual markings from the old railroad company that frequented the area (need to research this).

To the conductor’s left, there is a kid in Native American garb. The two kids atop the knoll are undetermined at the moment, but I am thinking of making at least one of them symbolic of a prominent city planner. The kid just over the knoll between these two is playing with a toy airplane. The Conway airport may not be so important to the community that it needs to be represented in the mural, but I think that it is an important attribute to the community. I also just sort of placed it there as an interesting echo of the “flying child” in the extreme foreground.

The figure in the center of the knoll is representative of teaching/education. I envision her dressed up in a costume of one of our historical female educators. She has her toy animals aligned atop the knoll as her imaginary pupils. I feel that it’s very important to use this opportunity of scale, so I really pushed the size of the most prominent “flying” child. This child symbolizes the future, freedom, and the hopeful optimism of a bright tomorrow. Scale will be important.

The model railroad town will be so small in the design, that it will be hard to distinguish them. However, on the actual mural-rendered in 2 foot scale, these details will be something that can draw the viewer in for closer inspection. The large figure will make an impact and be graphically readable from a distance, then these smaller details will make people want to get out of their cars and stay a while-again, something we determined that was important for this mural to do.

I plan to make a subtle reference to southern culture in making his or her (this is not a finished portrait) cape a quilt from the area. I am researching many quilts from the area right now, searching for a nice pattern from around 1907. In the extreme background to the left of the flying child are a couple of figures that I plan to transform into portraits of either Donaghey or James John Doyne who was instrumental in founding the teacher’s college that would become UCA in 1907-again, to remind us of the contribution that education has made to the cultural and commercial climate of Conway.

Lastly, I just want to say that I think that this design needs a lot of work-especially on the portraits and choosing of appropriate founding figures. However, I am really interested in the way this design connects the mural to the site where it resides. The idea that these intermingling kid-symbols from all different time periods are playing “trains” on the very site of an old train depot where today stands a park-in the painting and in reality (Simon Park) greatly interests me, and I think that this type of approach will do everything that we wanted the mural to do: NOT being merely a literal depiction of historical items, symbolize a new and progressive Conway, depict as a family-oriented city, touch on education as key to Conway’s development, refer to the site specificity of the mural, and reference the past while speaking of the future.

I plan to ask the Boys and Girls Club of Conway to model and photograph some of their kids in the various poses of the painting so that I can use them as reference. I will also continue to get photos from UCA students and faculty of historical buildings and people so that I can derive costumes and places. I would also welcome anyone reading this to send me images of their children in these poses for potential use in the painting, as well as images of quilt patterns indigenous to Arkansas around 1907, images of some of the leaders of education and founders of Conway, and nice railroad pictures from days gone by in Conway.

I would encourage everyone to offer feedback to this and the previous design. I would like to hear from you. Thank you very much and I’ll talk to you again next week.

Morton