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40th Anniversary Mural with Virgil Ortiz: Daily Highlights

Join us in celebrating a very special Alley Art Project mural – inspired by and designed with help from artist Virgil Ortiz. 

For over a decade, Rockwell Museum educators have been partnering with the High School Learning Center of the Corning-Painted Post Area School district to create stunning student-designed and painted murals that use The Rockwell’s own fine-art collection as inspiration.

Virgil Ortiz Ancient Elder2_1All summer, HSLC have studied Ortiz’s Ancient Elder sculpture on view at The Rockwell, a work developed as part of Ortiz’s futuristic revolution story taking place in 2180 that restores sacred lands to the Pueblo peoples. Inspired by this work, students created their own “super power” characters who are meant to help bring about important changes needed in society such as equality for all peoples. A final drawing is being created by Mr. Ortiz, incorporating elements of the students’ work that will become this year’s Alley Art Mural.

Under Ortiz’s guidance, the mural drawing will be painted by the HSLC students September 27 – 30, 2016. Updates posted here!

Day 1: September 26, 2017

Mural painting day one turned out to be a lot of organizing. Artists from near and far helped to lay the groundwork for a successful mural project. Artist Virgil Ortiz shared his vision for the mural and was joined by artist and friend, Michael Garcia of Villa Park, California. Artist-in-residence Bradford Leiby made an emergency run for additional spray paints. All were surprised at how much they could accomplish in a short amount of time! 

Thanks for checking in! More details coming soon.