THE C L A C K A M A S P R IN T
|
JA N . 28, 2015
| V O L . 48 ISSUE 10
5
New horticulture mural sprouts
on walls o f Clairmont Hall
Story and photo by Cassidy Scott
lackamas Community College’s horti
C
culture and art departments came to
gether over the summer to produce an
agricultural history mural on the walls
of Clairmont Hall.
The idea was first conceptualized by horticul
ture instructor Bruce Nelson in fall of 2013, when
students in his Urban Agriculture class created a
timeline of Willamette Valley agriculture on pa
per.
“It was just on butcher paper, a temporary
thing really. It kind of got us all thinking, you
know, it would be kind of a cool thing if we had
something like that in the department,” Nelson
said.
Nelsons idea was to create a timeline mural,
showing the rich agricultural history of the Wil
lamette Valley. Nelson then took his idea to the
art department, which had done similar murals
in the past.
“I approached David Andersen, who has been
involved in many of those murals, and he said
sure, he’d love to do it and could offer it as a sum
m er class,” Nelson said.
Before the plan could be put into action, how
ever, Nelson had to acquire the funds. Nelson put
in a request to the CGC Foundation, which after
requesting all the necessary paperwork from Nel
son was able to help the mural become a reality,
granting the project $3,300.
“The Foundation was critical,” Nelson said.
“We were lucky to get a substantial grant.”
The Foundation helped not only with Ander
sen and his teaching compensation for the sum
m er class, but assisted in paying then-CCC stu
dent Karen Irving, who was a critical part in the
needed research behind the project.
For Irving, who loved the project, the pay was
just an added bonus.
“I’m a big agriculture geek so I really liked this
project,” Irving said. “I also loved that it was part
of something very official and it had the backing
of the college.”
There was even more research and planning
for the art students as they began the project.
“The first day Bruce came in and spoke about
the history and the timeline,” Andersen explained.
“Then I handed out pieces of paper that we could
propose all sorts of things on, and then we win
nowed down those proposals into something that
was pretty livable for all of us. And so we had a
basic starting point.”
That being said, the “basic starting point,” end
ed up being slightly ambitious as the art students
attempted to create riot only a large three-paneled
mural in the entrance to Clairmont Hall, but also
another handful scattered down the adjacent hall
way. They set out to accomplish this in a three-
week period last summer.
“In the beginning I thought we had too much
time, but as it kept going on and on and on it was
like, we don’t have enough time,” Andersen said.
“We had to hustle a lot near the end to finish it off?’
And although the hours were long, for students
invested in the project it was well worth the work.
“I probably put more hours into it than a lot of
people, but I love it so it didn’t feel like work,” said
Kate Kobielsky, former CCC art student.
Now that all the finishing touches are done
on the mural, the teachers and students involved
were very happy with the end result.
“I actually drove down to see it,” Irving said.
“We love how it turned out.”
Kobielsky agreed.
“The horticulture department was a great
place for this installment, otherwise an unvisit
ed area of campus by general student body,” Ko
bielsky said. “Now this department could see a lot
more foot traffic — possibly creating more wide
spread interest in horticulture.”
Andersen noted the importance of merging
two very different departments within the school.
“There’s a lot of students in the arts who aren’t
going to take horticulture and a lot of horticulture
students who have never taken an art class, when
we merge like that it kind of exposes everyone to
a different way of thinking,” Andersen said. “I’m
proud of what the students were able to accom
plish.”
Now, the mural is finished and the paint
brushes are put down — or are they?
“We’re going to sneak over there and paint
things into the big mural every once in a while, we
already have, nobody knows. So we might consid
er it an ongoing interactive piece in the painting
classes,” Andersen said.
A rt and horticulture departments combined forces to create an agricultural history mural in the Clairmont Hall.