I was so filled with joy to complete my Artist-in-Residency with Montrose Elementary students in Songwriting earlier this month. (See this post for an earlier explanation…and then wait for more details to follow.)
BUT! I was not the only artist to work with the students this year.
Michelle Stitzlein is a visual artist who designed and helped the students install a mural entitled “Roots and Wings”
Here is the detail of “Roots”
“and Wings”
The brilliance of the colors and the composition are so active and exciting–just like the songs I wrote with the 2nd Graders.
But now look more closely: The material for this mosaic is all injection-molded bottle tops! All in the original colors of their original fabrication.
The school has been collecting these bottle tops all year because it is estimated that they don’t decompose back to their natural components for 500 years. With Michelle’s help, they have removed them from the refuse stream and assigned them a new, beautifying purpose.
AND, each child in the school was able to add at least one of the tops to the art. And, they can remember which one they added! “That’s mine!” a student proudly says, pointing to a green one near the bottom.
“What’s Your Story?” has been the school theme for the year.
This reminds me of the Felice Holman poem, “who am i” that I set to music, a line of which became the title for my 2007 recording. (Listen and/or download here)
All of us have a piece of the puzzle and together they magnify and multiply beauty in the world!
