Artist Statement
Morton Brown
As part of University of Central Arkansas’s Centennial celebration, I was commissioned to bring to Conway a public art process that I helped create in Pittsburgh, Pa. in 2003. Over the past months, I have had the wonderful opportunity to engage Conway residents, UCA faculty and students in a dialogue—in person and through email and blogging—around this collaborative mural project.
UCA has brought me to Pittsburgh on two occasions to lead community dialogue sessions around the mural project. Many invitations went out to residents and students and newspaper articles helped draw over sixty attendees to my first visit on February 15. At this meeting, held at Don Owen Sports Center in Conway, I led a brief tutorial of images of murals from around the world tracing my personal experience from Clinton, Arkansas through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh then launched into a brainstorming session in which over sixty community members and students of all ages voiced ideas of subject matter for the mural. All ideas were recorded, placed on the mural website, and emailed back to the community group.
After the initial meeting, I traveled back to Pittsburgh and began working on the design in response to the ideas generated by the community. Students, faculty of UCA, and community members helped me research images of Conway’s history as I worked on the design over the course of about six weeks. Each week, I delivered a design iteration along with an artist journal via email to the community group as well as faculty and students of UCA that had signed up for the list. I received feedback through email and the online blog throughout this process that was very helpful in keeping the collaboration going throughout the design phase.
On April 12, I traveled to Arkansas once again to present my preliminary mural design and lead a discussion with the group, asking for feedback, comments and suggestions. I also met with the Conway Public Art Commission, Conway Public School teachers, Boys and Girls Club, and displayed the design as part of the UCA Senior Thesis Exhibition where I also solicited feedback.
From this exercise, I went back to Pittsburgh and made many (somewhat minor, detail-oriented) modifications to the design. The design I present here is the culmination of many hours of dialogue with Conway community members, research (even the Native American costume on the little girl is accurate to the indigenous Caddo tribe), and my artistic sensibilities superimposed upon my much-beloved alma mater.
In the proposed design, the bright future of Conway rises out of a deep respect of the city’s history. The children that reside in the lower left corner of the painting are playing inside a large model train diorama. These children at play—their toys, costumes and actions—reference different periods of Conway’s history while speaking to the idea that our future and past are linked—new generations standing on the shoulders of our forefathers.
Model buildings represent the three main colleges in Conway, as well as public schools, a farm, and the old train depot. From left to right, the buildings are The Little Green School House (Conway’s first public school), St. Joseph original school building, Hendrix College (Old Main), The Pine Street School (Conway’s first African American public school), Central Baptist College (Old Main), a toy farm (representing Conway’s growth from an agrarian society), The Arkansas Normal School original building (now UCA) and the Conway Train Depot. The model railroad town is very small in the design, but in the actual mural-rendered in 2 foot scale-the details will be quite visible from a distance, but also will draw the viewer in for closer inspection. In the community dialogue, we decided that it was very important to relate the mural to its site-the old Conway Train Depot, its proximity to the still-functioning railroad tracks, and its current use as a city park.
In our community brainstorming session-the meeting in which Conway residents and UCA students voiced their ideas for the mural-it was agreed that education has played a large role in the founding and perpetuation of culture and commercial sustainability in the city. Therefore, the focus of the historical references is largely on educational institutions and figures.
I depicted the children playing dress up-wearing costumes that represent the passage of time through key archetypes from various important periods and/or ideals from Conway’s past and present. For instance, there is a child in a train conductor’s hat in the lower center of the picture who holds a model train engine from the Little Rock & Ft. Smith Railroad of the early 1900’s. To the conductor’s left, there is a child in Native American (Caddo) garb that speaks to early inhabitants of the area, and Conway’s proximity to the Trail of Tears passage. Further to the left is a ballerina, symbolizing the growth of arts and culture in the city. The child laying the railroad tracks is dressed in garb taken from a photo of a Conway Train Depot dispatcher from around 1905. The figure in the center, atop the knoll is a teacher, delivering her lesson to her favorite toys. The teacher’s “students” are her favorite Sesame Street characters that are educational in nature, and allude to AETN in Conway. The largest, “flying kid” is the future-draped in a cape made from an Arkansas Traveler quilt, and slightly turning into digital pixels as she heads off into the new day. The models used for the conductor, teacher and train dispatcher are children from Conway’s Boys and Girls Club. On the far left, are three of Conway’s prominent founding historical figures. From left to right, they are Col. Asa Robinson, founder of the City of Conway, Florence Mattison, Conway Public School educator associated with The Pine Street School, and James John Doyne, founder of Arkansas Normal School, now known as the University of Central Arkansas.
I have adhered to the words from the community that this painting should represent the town’s history, but depict Conway as a progressive city, providing a sense of the new and moving towards the future. The pixilation in the sky starts to do this, but in the last stages of the design I brought back design cues from an earlier design that incorporated a filigree pattern from the art nouveau movement in the early 20th century. The sky is now filled with this filigree design that, now abstracted in large scale, becomes a sense of energy, “sprouting” new growth, and makes the whole painting more of a contemporary, progressive work of public art. It also helps place the three historical figures in the correct context—they are not creepy figures looming over the horizon (as was my earlier concern), but they are from a different time than the rest of the cast of characters, and all of the action that is taking place in the rest of the painting is literally stemming from their shoulders.
To date, there have been four articles in the Log Cabin Democrat, two articles in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, an article in The Vino (UCA honors College newspaper) and two articles in The Echo (UCA student newspaper). UCA students have collaborated with me to produce a website and blog that documents each phase of the project, down to design iterations, historical reference images and artist journals.
I believe that this project has transcended its function to create a piece of public art. It has already brought community members of disparate interests, backgrounds and people of all ages together in dialogue around art-when, I dare say, there would likely be no other cause that would gather these together in this way. Public schools, after-school programs and other civic groups are already gathering and planning to participate in onsite lectures, demonstrations and hands-on activities associated with the painting of the mural this fall. Some are planning to work with UCA Art Education students and develop mural-making lessons as part of a curriculum. There have even been discussions around the Conway university community in forming a partnership that will make the mural dedication ceremony into a city-wide celebration of activities.
I am so pleased to be a part of this project, and I look forward to seeing it through to completion.
Thank you,
Morton Brown
412-901-1546
bromorton@gmail.com
www.uca.edu/mural
Morton Brown
As part of University of Central Arkansas’s Centennial celebration, I was commissioned to bring to Conway a public art process that I helped create in Pittsburgh, Pa. in 2003. Over the past months, I have had the wonderful opportunity to engage Conway residents, UCA faculty and students in a dialogue—in person and through email and blogging—around this collaborative mural project.
UCA has brought me to Pittsburgh on two occasions to lead community dialogue sessions around the mural project. Many invitations went out to residents and students and newspaper articles helped draw over sixty attendees to my first visit on February 15. At this meeting, held at Don Owen Sports Center in Conway, I led a brief tutorial of images of murals from around the world tracing my personal experience from Clinton, Arkansas through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh then launched into a brainstorming session in which over sixty community members and students of all ages voiced ideas of subject matter for the mural. All ideas were recorded, placed on the mural website, and emailed back to the community group.
After the initial meeting, I traveled back to Pittsburgh and began working on the design in response to the ideas generated by the community. Students, faculty of UCA, and community members helped me research images of Conway’s history as I worked on the design over the course of about six weeks. Each week, I delivered a design iteration along with an artist journal via email to the community group as well as faculty and students of UCA that had signed up for the list. I received feedback through email and the online blog throughout this process that was very helpful in keeping the collaboration going throughout the design phase.
On April 12, I traveled to Arkansas once again to present my preliminary mural design and lead a discussion with the group, asking for feedback, comments and suggestions. I also met with the Conway Public Art Commission, Conway Public School teachers, Boys and Girls Club, and displayed the design as part of the UCA Senior Thesis Exhibition where I also solicited feedback.
From this exercise, I went back to Pittsburgh and made many (somewhat minor, detail-oriented) modifications to the design. The design I present here is the culmination of many hours of dialogue with Conway community members, research (even the Native American costume on the little girl is accurate to the indigenous Caddo tribe), and my artistic sensibilities superimposed upon my much-beloved alma mater.
In the proposed design, the bright future of Conway rises out of a deep respect of the city’s history. The children that reside in the lower left corner of the painting are playing inside a large model train diorama. These children at play—their toys, costumes and actions—reference different periods of Conway’s history while speaking to the idea that our future and past are linked—new generations standing on the shoulders of our forefathers.
Model buildings represent the three main colleges in Conway, as well as public schools, a farm, and the old train depot. From left to right, the buildings are The Little Green School House (Conway’s first public school), St. Joseph original school building, Hendrix College (Old Main), The Pine Street School (Conway’s first African American public school), Central Baptist College (Old Main), a toy farm (representing Conway’s growth from an agrarian society), The Arkansas Normal School original building (now UCA) and the Conway Train Depot. The model railroad town is very small in the design, but in the actual mural-rendered in 2 foot scale-the details will be quite visible from a distance, but also will draw the viewer in for closer inspection. In the community dialogue, we decided that it was very important to relate the mural to its site-the old Conway Train Depot, its proximity to the still-functioning railroad tracks, and its current use as a city park.
In our community brainstorming session-the meeting in which Conway residents and UCA students voiced their ideas for the mural-it was agreed that education has played a large role in the founding and perpetuation of culture and commercial sustainability in the city. Therefore, the focus of the historical references is largely on educational institutions and figures.
I depicted the children playing dress up-wearing costumes that represent the passage of time through key archetypes from various important periods and/or ideals from Conway’s past and present. For instance, there is a child in a train conductor’s hat in the lower center of the picture who holds a model train engine from the Little Rock & Ft. Smith Railroad of the early 1900’s. To the conductor’s left, there is a child in Native American (Caddo) garb that speaks to early inhabitants of the area, and Conway’s proximity to the Trail of Tears passage. Further to the left is a ballerina, symbolizing the growth of arts and culture in the city. The child laying the railroad tracks is dressed in garb taken from a photo of a Conway Train Depot dispatcher from around 1905. The figure in the center, atop the knoll is a teacher, delivering her lesson to her favorite toys. The teacher’s “students” are her favorite Sesame Street characters that are educational in nature, and allude to AETN in Conway. The largest, “flying kid” is the future-draped in a cape made from an Arkansas Traveler quilt, and slightly turning into digital pixels as she heads off into the new day. The models used for the conductor, teacher and train dispatcher are children from Conway’s Boys and Girls Club. On the far left, are three of Conway’s prominent founding historical figures. From left to right, they are Col. Asa Robinson, founder of the City of Conway, Florence Mattison, Conway Public School educator associated with The Pine Street School, and James John Doyne, founder of Arkansas Normal School, now known as the University of Central Arkansas.
I have adhered to the words from the community that this painting should represent the town’s history, but depict Conway as a progressive city, providing a sense of the new and moving towards the future. The pixilation in the sky starts to do this, but in the last stages of the design I brought back design cues from an earlier design that incorporated a filigree pattern from the art nouveau movement in the early 20th century. The sky is now filled with this filigree design that, now abstracted in large scale, becomes a sense of energy, “sprouting” new growth, and makes the whole painting more of a contemporary, progressive work of public art. It also helps place the three historical figures in the correct context—they are not creepy figures looming over the horizon (as was my earlier concern), but they are from a different time than the rest of the cast of characters, and all of the action that is taking place in the rest of the painting is literally stemming from their shoulders.
To date, there have been four articles in the Log Cabin Democrat, two articles in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, an article in The Vino (UCA honors College newspaper) and two articles in The Echo (UCA student newspaper). UCA students have collaborated with me to produce a website and blog that documents each phase of the project, down to design iterations, historical reference images and artist journals.
I believe that this project has transcended its function to create a piece of public art. It has already brought community members of disparate interests, backgrounds and people of all ages together in dialogue around art-when, I dare say, there would likely be no other cause that would gather these together in this way. Public schools, after-school programs and other civic groups are already gathering and planning to participate in onsite lectures, demonstrations and hands-on activities associated with the painting of the mural this fall. Some are planning to work with UCA Art Education students and develop mural-making lessons as part of a curriculum. There have even been discussions around the Conway university community in forming a partnership that will make the mural dedication ceremony into a city-wide celebration of activities.
I am so pleased to be a part of this project, and I look forward to seeing it through to completion.
Thank you,
Morton Brown
412-901-1546
bromorton@gmail.com
www.uca.edu/mural
