The Whitley County Community Art Center is gaining a new piece of artwork through a collaboration with the University of Kentucky College of Fine Arts.   The artist, Colin Glenn, is a senior at the School of Art and Visual Studies and has been working with Whitley County Fine Arts staff Cortney Moses and Mawnie Belcher to create a new, innovative mural for the community to enjoy. 

“The project came about through a grant partnership between the University of Kentucky Arts Extension program and the College of Fine Arts to advance the work of arts students and faculty into communities across the state.  The mural will be completed at no cost to the local community, and gives our students the chance to work directly with counties outside of the Lexington area,”  said Lee Ann Paynter, Professor in the School of Arts and Visual Studies.   

Whitley County is currently one of the few counties in Kentucky to host an Arts Extension program, as well as the only county to host a Community Art Center for residents to attend a wide range of visual art workshops such as pottery, painting, jewelry-making, and more.  

Since in-person community workshops and engagement were restricted due to COVID-19, the planning team used a digital survey to gather responses from Whitley County residents. Rather than ask about the physical elements of a mural, like what paint colors to use or style of art, the survey asked the community about their inspirations. The survey asked residents:

What inspires you to create? 

What does hope mean to you? 

What makes you feel most alive? 

The questions were shared on social media and throughout the Art Center’s mailing list, and received nearly 100 individual responses.  Answers ranged from “seeing other people’s creativity” , to “being in nature”, to “listening to meaningful music and spending time with my friends and family.”   After the survey results were compiled, Colin sorted the answers into dominant themes and categories.   He discovered that almost all answers fell into the themes of family, nature, and faith.  

“From that I started sketching.  I thought about the natural cycle of how things are created, born, lives, and dies, and are then created over and over again.  I thought about how the radial symmetry of the smallest leaf is also reflected in large patterns and elements throughout all of nature and how we have to have faith every day that nature will continue, regardless of anything else we do.”   

The planning team had several meetings over Zoom where Colin shared his sketches and digitally imposed them onto the wall that would be painted.  Through the team’s conversation, the idea to have a repeating, radiating pattern that starts simple and abstract but turns more realistic as it spirals out gained traction.  Colin also incorporated clear examples of artistic skills such as highlights, lowlights, contrast, shading, abstract elements, and realism so that Art Center staff can use it as a teaching tool for students developing their own artistic skills. 

“We are excited to engage Colin in the experiential learning process of listening to a client’s goals and translating that into artwork.  This is a skill that working muralists must fine-tune in order to gain success in their field”, said Cortney Moses, Arts Extension Agent.  “I am so impressed with the way Colin took feedback from almost 100 anonymous Whitley County residents and translated it into something that is both beautiful and mesmerizing to look at and will be used as an arts education tool for years to come.”