Pioneer Peak students share highlights from mural project

During the October 16 meeting of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District (MSBSD) school board, two young students from Pioneer Peak Elementary took time to highlight a special teacher at their school-Artist in Residence Jen Jolliff.

The boys, Aiden Bluff and Trevor Castle, told the school board that it was due to efforts by teacher Bethany Fernstrom, who applied for the Artist in Schools Grant of $3800. The school PTA raised an additional $2200 to have the artist come to their school.

Jolliff has been an Alaskan artist for more than 25 years and many have already seen her work as some is at the Wasilla Public Library.

Jolliff got to work helping to complete two murals for the school

“The K through 2 mural is a landscape of Pioneer Peak, and the Third through Fifth grade mural created a mural that shows our school boundary,” said Castle. The boys told the school board that each mural was made up of over 500 tiles created by the students.

Bluff then shared the steps they took to create the mural, including drawing the details of the boundary map copied from pictures before painting the tiles.

The students also shared that the school recently held a Community Art Night in which families could also come out and paint tiles with their students and complete tiles for the murals that needing finishing.

“This was a fun night,” said Bluff

“We had so much fun with this project, and our whole school feels very proud with the finished murals,” said Castle.