In Woodside’s relatively new I-Wing, the Mix Media Arts Club is painting a mural on the wall separating the I-Wing back courtyard and the football field. This group works on it every Friday after school.
Senior Jennifer Rodriguez is the president of the Mix Media Arts Club. Rodriguez expressed interest in starting a Woodside art club that does activities such as murals. She talks about her ideas forming towards the end of her junior year and putting the idea into action at the start of her senior year.
“[It] was difficult [to complete this project],” Rodriguez said. “I had to talk with the principal, and then they had to communicate with the district to get [the project] approved, which is why it took me [nearly] a year to start.”
Following the approval of the Mix Media Art Clubs mural, the school had to get the wall prepped for painting.
“Once [the district and school] approved the project, they had to [take steps such as] power wash and prime [the wall], so we could actually start working,” Rodriguez said.
To actually get started on the project, Rodriguez had to create a design that would fit in the space they had.
“I worked on the design with a friend, because we had to do it digitally,” Rodriguez said. “I had to map the design out before we did it, such as free-handing it. It took a lot of effort redrafting because we felt like we wanted to incorporate as many things from the arts department from our school as possible.”
With this project, Rodriguez hopes it will inspire students to do more projects like this in the future and learn from the mistakes or challenges they face with their project.
“[As I mentioned before] the school did a primer first, but it didn’t turn out really good, so we [had to buy] our own primer,” Rodriguez said. “It was really hard [with circumstances such as] it raining or it’d be really hot, as well as other challenges.”
Murals are often put around buildings and schools to create individualism and stand out among other places. Rodriguez discussed the importance of filling walls with artwork to make the school more personalized and inviting.
“[Our design was] based around the specific department of digital arts [considering the fact it was in the I-wing, which is primarily photo and digital music production],” Rodriguez said. “We were trying to incorporate different art forms. So there’s a lot of music incorporated into the actual mural, such as instruments and other things like that.”
Creating a mural requires lots of resources such as paint, brushes, tape, tarps and other necessities, which can get pricey with such a large project.
“[To get the materials necessary for this project] I got outside resources from people who wanted to help me, just because they knew it was something I wanted to do, so they gave the majority of our funding for materials,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez hopes students continue to be inspired and follow her steps in student-led projects like this. With this, she gave a word of advice.
“It takes a lot of time, [so prepare for a] time commitment,” Rodriguez said. “I thought I was gonna start the project like a week after proposing it, and as you can see, it turned out very different. So it’s really about dedication and staying with the goal.”
