Mural at The Renaissance Center is “Oz-some”

Release Date: 4/23/2002. Expired: 5/23/2002

Don your ruby slippers, your tin attire, your great mane and your scarecrow hat and follow the yellow brick road from Kansas to the Emerald City with Dorothy and her friends the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Toto, too.

The students in art teacher Julie Houdeshell’s Mural Painting Class have undertaken the task of creating a mural depicting the scenic splendor of The Wizard of Oz on the 52-by-10-foot wall in the last block of the lower level hallway at The Renaissance Center.

As one approaches the second set of double doors leading down the hall, one can hear the laughter, the giggling, the jokes and other happy sounds as the artists work their way down the huge wall.

The reason for that, Houdeshell says, is the blending of similar personalities with a common goal. The artists appear to be having a great time, and the joy they are experiencing is reflected in their work.

Using acrylic paint on cinderblock walls is much more difficult than painting on a flat wall or canvas.

“It’s almost like painting on the surface of the moon,” says Houdeshell. “It requires so much more paint and effort to cover all those little craters.”

The mural was the brainchild of Houdeshell’s class and is expected to be completed sometime in May. The students began work on the mural in January after they learned the professional process of mural making, which included three weeks of research to find source images to model the lush green fields of Kansas and the Emerald City, as well as countless preliminary sketches. The characters were changed to avoid copyright infringement. However, there is no doubt what the mural reflects.

“This is an awfully large undertaking, especially for the first class,” Houdeshell says. “I’m very impressed.”

Houdeshell says the reason for the mural is to enhance the experience of the thousands of children who visit The Renaissance Center each year. The mural is just outside the double doors of the overflow lunchroom where students and teachers go to eat lunch.

“The hallway was rather plain and we thought the mural would be an inspiration to the children who come here,” says Houdeshell. “I wanted to teach my students the entire process of creating an effective mural from start to finish. I also want them to be able to present the process to clients that they receive once they begin painting murals professionally.”

The students selected The Wizard of Oz as the theme for their mural. The book is no longer in copyright but the movie still is, so some changes were made in the characters, such as making Dorothy look younger.

“Basically, we just made sure the characters didn’t look exactly like the ones in the film.”

The mural has gone from thumbnail sketches to finished, polished work in some areas.

“They’re doing a wonderful job,” Houdeshell says of students Carmen Westerman of Dickson, Ruth Walp of Nashville and Nora Prince of Dickson.

“A mural a quarter of the size of this one in a private home would cost between five and seven thousand dollars. So it’s almost a community service in itself. The students are taking this class to learn but they’ve gone beyond the knowledge it takes to do something like this. It’s a beautification project that’s really for the children.”

The Yellow Brick Road, however, won’t be painted until summer when the field trips are over with. Houdeshell said the reason for the delay is that it takes the concrete paint at least three days to dry.

The faculty and staff at The Renaissance Center say they enjoy watching the artists work on Thursday afternoons.

“It’s a lot of fun to watch how the mural is progressing,” says Webmaster and instructor Clay McKinney. “I’ve always been a fan of L. Frank Baum novels.”

“It’s really colorful and I’ve enjoyed watching the process of it being created,” says Hal Partlow, manager of The Renaissance Repertory Company. “I’m not a painter myself so it’s been nice to see that process since I don’t really understand it.”

The faculty and staff tend to throw in their two cents about what might be missing in the bigger picture, who’s been left out, or just general information about their perception of the classic characters.

“We receive criticism and you learn how to accept it artistically,” says Houdeshell. “Some of the comments have been helpful. But most people are simply enjoying it.”

The doors leading to the lunchroom are painted and direct the visitor into Oz, or the lunchroom.

Houdeshell says she hopes next semester to move into the lunchroom and turn it into Oz, complete with Munchkins and the big guy himself. Finally, the back doors leading out to the loading dock will be painted to portray the Wizard heading away in his hot air balloon.

So far, nobody has seen Glenda the Good Witch. The students are still trying to decide whether to put her in the picture or wait until the scene flows into the lunchroom. Of course, the Wicked Witch of the East lies beneath Dorothy’s house, with her striped stockings protruding from under Auntie Em’s tornado-blown Kansas farmhouse.

“I think it’s a great project,” says Houdeshell. “It has just been such a wonderful contribution to all of the students who pass by it.”