Three University art students hope to complete a 350-foot long mural they have been working on since summer by May.
The project has been met with some adversity.
Originally the students and their instructor, Greg Mueller, thought the project could be completed by Homecoming in October, but the project is still under construction.
‘This is being done entirely by the volunteerism of three students and an instructor with very little additional resources,’ Mueller said.
The project started as part of Mueller’s ARTS 401 class. The class was broken into three small groups, with each group having to design a proposal to enhance the intersection of Poe and North College.
The group that won consisted of Megan Small and Steve Williams, who are both seniors, and Jason Karas, junior, who have been working on the project since the summer.
During the summer, the group toured the city of Bowling Green and took pictures of people in the community working and living their everyday lives.
The mural features silhouettes of the photographed people on the wall with a centerpiece of the Great Black Swamp.
‘I designed the central area of the wall, which depicts the Great Black Swamp,’ Karas said. ‘It incorporates over 20 hidden animals arranged throughout the center. This is in the center because we believe it is the foundation of the community.’
Branching to the left side of the mural is a skyline of local architecture and to the right it flows into a history of the area depicting events like the draining of the Great Black Swamp.
The silhouettes of the people show the community’s unity.
‘We arranged them in a flow that would show the community working together,’ Karas said.
The mural also features a wide variety of people in the community.
‘The project depicts over 100 individuals from the area including farmers, Freddie Falcon, families, hikers, squirrels, school children, a skateboarder, athletes, a sushi chef and much more,’ Small said.
The mural features two sides, one depicting the campus community and one side the local community.
‘College Avenue portrays BG students, faculty and staff,’ Mueller said. ‘While, Poe Road will depict community members engaged in their livelihoods. Physically, and symbolically, Poe and College become unified into a structural whole.’
The group had to alter plans when they discovered bedrock under the location site.
‘Our foundation design had to change midway through due to unpredictable bedrock sediments underground,’ Mueller said.
Small said the group also had to wait for a long time seeking engineers to draw up plans and to get approval from Wood County building inspectors. It also took a while for supplies like the metal to come in.
The weather also posed some problems for the mural’s completion.
‘During the winter we couldn’t do a lot because the ground was frozen,’ Small said.
The three-member team hopes to have a ribbon cutting for the mural in early May, any help with labor, landscaping and materials would help make the goal a reality.
‘We plan on commending the donators at the ribbon cutting as well as permanently including them within a plaque,’ Karas said.
More information can be found at www.poeroad.org.
