Fretz Middle School, Pitt-Bradford Professor Collaborate on Mural

By Kimberly Marcott Weinberg
Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing
A new mural in the functional life skills room at Floyd C. Fretz Middle School has taught its student artists about more than just art.

The bright new mural was a collaboration between Fretz art teacher Janelle Turk and the 26 art club students she advises, life skills teacher Mike Gow and eight students with disabilities, and University of Pittsburgh at Bradford associate professor of art Kong Ho, who has used braces to walk since contracting polio as a child in Hong Kong.

The students celebrated their new mural at a reception Friday afternoon at the school.

Designed by students with the help of Ho and Turk, the mural features bright silhouettes of students from both the art club and life skills classes in a variety of poses. The silhouettes are arranged with symbols in a dynamic composition that takes up the entire mural, which is about 9 feet square.

The students not only posed for the photos but also determined the layout and colors.

The project came about when Ho contacted Turk about the possibility of organizing a mural workshop at Fretz. In addition to promoting collaborative mural painting, the project allowed Ho to fulfill the teaching requirement of an artist fellowship he earned from VSA Arts, the premier fellowship for teaching artists with disabilities around the country.

At the same time, Gow contacted Turk to ask her to help brighten up the large, dark room where his students spend most of their time taking their life skills classes and therapies.

Turk guided students, taught and prepped for the entire process.

“Co-teaching with a professor is something I’ve never done before,” Turk said. “I’m learning so much.”

For a wheelchair-bound student such as 14-year-old Rodney Jones, there are significant benefits to working with a disabled artist. For one thing, Ho is not uncomfortable around Jones.

Ho takes Jones’ wheelchair and pushes him right up to the table where he is mixing paint.

“You want to mix the color?” Ho asks, and Jones smiles a huge smile, then watches with a look of deep concentration as Ho explains what he’s doing. Jones is fascinated by Ho, never taking his eyes off of him. Perhaps he is concentrating extra hard because of Ho’s Chinese accent.

After the colors are mixed, Gow paints with Jones, guiding his hand. After awhile, Jones gets the hang of it, Gow backs off, and Jones is painting on his own.

“See Ms. Turk? See Mr. Gow?” he asks. “Can I tell my mom?”

With 34 students working on the mural and a limited amount of space in which they can work, only a few can come during each time set aside to work on it. Turk gets the process moving by priming the wall.

The art club students simply cannot soak up enough. The students and Turk enjoy telling Ho about a recent trip to The Mattress Factory art gallery in Pittsburgh, and Ho chats and teaches art lessons as they paint side-by-side. Turk adds to these lessons, too. The students are learning without even knowing it.

Ho said, “I feel that teaching this mural painting workshop is not just about teaching knowledge of mural, it is also about sharing values and attitudes, discovering what others think and experience. From my observation, students are more open in expressing themselves when the social barrier between teacher and students disappears during the collaborative painting process.”

Seventh-grader Naomi Kriner said, “I’m so glad I signed up for Art Club. I love art. If I could stay every day after school to work on the mural, I would.”

In the photos, courtesy of Pitt-Bradford, art teacher Janelle Turk shows sixth-grade student Jordan McKinney how to mix paint; Kong Ho works with Rodney Jones; sixth-grader Hannah Leposa works on the mural in the Fretz life skills room.