Bridgeport students create murals for library
The first finished mural may be hung as early as next week
Jonathan House / The Times
Sarah Hill (in white sweater), a fourth-grader at Tualatin’s Bridgeport Elementary, asks artist Mark Brody a question during a class on glass mosaics, Tuesday.
Bridgeport Elementary School will receive a few new splashes of color after Mark Brody gets done with it. A Portland-based mosaic artist, Brody is working with students from the school’s second- through fifth-grade classes to create four glass mosaics which will wrap around pillars in the elementary school’s library.
Children hover over tables in the elementary school’s art classroom, arranging pieces of blue, yellow, purple and orange glass like puzzle pieces.
Brody called the four mosaics a “legacy project” that Bridgeport children will be able to love for many years.
“The kids get such satisfaction out of seeing such a long-term project in the school,” said Brody, who has done similar projects with schools across the Portland area. “They can take real pride in their work, and they get to return and see it. It’s not just there for right now, it’s there for the long term.”
Brody works with each grade for one week, teaching them about mosaics and collaborating to come up with ideas on what the art project will look like, then it’s straight to work.
“We have two days of drawing,” said Brody. Each class is given a theme to work around, and then ideas spring from there.
“I take the kids’ drawings and then make one template to work from,” he said.
From there, the kids cut and place tiny glass pieces on top of the drawing, in a sort-of “paint-by-numbers” for glass pieces.
Children are divided into groups, each focusing on a small piece of the mosaic.
Once the section is done, Brody lays a large piece of clear tape over the top, freezing the pieces in place. From there they are attached to the larger mosaic and, when finished, will be wrapped around the library’s pillars.
“When I tape a piece, I freeze that artwork in time,” said Brody. “It’s the kids who do everything. I just take their work and then set it in cement. The kids get to put them together, they can see their own marks on it.”
For Brody, who works with students in classrooms across Portland, the hardest part with working with elementary school children is preparing for each class.
“I cut a lot of the pieces ahead of time,” he said, working his way around the classroom laying out papers and tidying up pieces of left-behind glass in preparation for the next class. “You have to really be set up for them. Preparation is much more extensive with the kids, because we are on such a tight schedule.”
Children get exactly 50 minutes with “Mr. Brody” and then it’s back to class, or lunch, or recess.
The fifth-grade class recently finished a mosaic on the solar system, fourth-grade will finish their “Oregon” mosaic later this week. Then it’s on to third-graders’ “animals” mosaic, and finally second-grade, whose mosaic will focus on school and their community.
“It’s fun to get kids to appreciate just how many tiles are put in to their mosaics,” said Brody.
Each mosaic will feature around 3,000 pieces of glass, most no larger than one square inch.
“These art projects are turning out great,” said Bridgeport Principal Gerry Nihill. “The kids are getting this great opportunity to learn from a really fantastic artist, I can’t wait see these continue to take shape.”
While a special artist-in-residence at Bridgeport is a new idea for the school, Nihill said that he hopes to bring in more artists in the future to work with students
“We have one other mosaic that is in our cafeteria,” he said. “We made that quite a few years ago, and we’d love to add mosaics and murals like these throughout the school. They’re pieces that are inspired by kids, and made by kids.”
The first finished mural could be hung in the library as early as next week.