Art Mural

Thornridge High School

Art Mural:

“Edward Hopper” & “Winslow Homer: The Color of Light” Exhibits

Since the middle of April, students in Mrs. Fort’s combined Visual Design I and Visual Design II class have been studying the renowned iconic American artist, Edward Hopper. Hopper is best known for his modern-realist painting, Nighthawks, which depicts a New York City café on a deserted corner late at night. The students had the privilege to see this painting in person at its permanent location, the Art Institute of Chicago, in April when they toured the Edward Hopper and Homer Winslow exhibits. This painting was divided into 12 equal rectangles, and each student was assigned a specific rectangle to reproduce. The café patrons and waiter in the original painting were then replaced by four different African American civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. Two additional civil rights activists were added to the outside of the café, the bust of President Abraham Lincoln, cropped and entering the scene from the bottom left, and Caesar Chavez gazing down at the street from one of the second story windows in the upper left. The name of the café, Phillies, was changed to “Freedom Café,” and the class cleverly named this parody Civil RIGHThawks.

The students were responsible not only for their 20”x16” rectangle, but also for matching the colors and sweeping linear diagonals and horizontals with both the original painting and the surrounding canvases of their peers. Photographs were taken every day to document the progress being made on the mural, and Mrs. Fort gave each student multiple pictures of them working. Mr. Whitman connected the 12 canvases and designed and built a beautiful wood frame to encase the large 80”x 64” mural. On Wednesday, May 7^th, the mural was placed on permanent display, on the wall in the main office of Thornridge High School.

As all but one of the 11 students who worked on this massive project were members of the 2008 senior class, this was a nice close to their senior year as each of them will be leaving behind a piece of themselves on the walls of Thornridge High School.

Students who worked on this project are: seniors Sean Coley, Veronica Rodriguez, Jeneva McCall, Emily Kennedy, Kaneesha Henderson, Terrance Harness, Stefon Jackson, Derrick Meeks, Kendrae Watson, Julian Turner, and sophomore Michael Ray.