What a year…

This project started in January of 2020 where we sat close to participants and riffled through discarded plastic together. In late December 2020 the mural was installed for the third and final time in an empty building, alone and masked we looked back on out Creative ReUse year.
Our last school residency in February was a bit tense with students washing hands before and after every activity but no one actually knew what was coming. We are incredibly lucky to have met with most participants in person before the stay at home order. Thanks to some timely grants and artists relief funding, we shifted gears and created this website to keep the project going and quite honestly to keep ourselves going. Finding creativity was hard and we needed something to work on amidst the stress of an emerging global pandemic. When schools closed and we knew that many students would not have any access to art supplies, we wanted to share creative projects that could be done at home with the things in your recycling bin. The switch from in person teaching to making videos alone at home was a shift to say the least.
The next time we saw each other in person, we worked outside with masks on, constantly dancing around each other to keep our distance. To follow the trend of the year, the plan for this project kept morphing and changing. The mural was displayed outside for most of the summer and fall around Burlington. When at first we could not find a space to install, Alissa’s own driveway became an outdoor gallery. Late in the summer the mural moved outside of Echo, looking at the same view that inspired us in the first place.
Thank you to all our partners and the participants who helped us on this journey. It was truly a community project whether we were together in person, emailing back and forth, learning something new or viewing art from afar. Creative community engagement touches us all and we are grateful for the experience.