It was designed by me as a color by number the neighborhood could participate in. Healthy Neighbors, a Yale Nursing School organization, got the paint and supplies and permission.
We asked the kids of the neighborhood what they wanted as a mural. Of the best ideas from their submissions, we recognized a few common themes. We took those, and organized the images into a format that would be symmetrical and easy to understand, mapping it out on graph paper.
The graph paper was transposed onto large sheets of aluminum, and a color-by-number was sketched out.
Then we all sat on the lawn with all the kids from the neighborhood and painted it all by a series of numbers marked on the sheets of aluminum. It was a group project, documented on the public access show by the same name as this blog.
The aluminum sheets were then mounted to an otherwise unexciting wall, visible from the train station across the street.
Because of these efforts, I am now listed in City Hall as a publicly displayed artist in the city, which is a rare honor but is deserved by every member of that community, in particular the kids who painted that day.
