“They really created a connection.” Three schools, one amazing art project brings Upper Susitna students together

Students, families, and staff from Trapper Creek Elementary, Willow Elementary, and Talkeetna Elementary gathered for a unique collaboration project featuring a mural painting that was unveiled for a one-time only viewing this past Sunday at Su Valley Junior-Senior High School.

The students also collaborated on a song together, which made its debut as well.

“The kids are really excited. They really created a connection to the artists. And the people coming out here today is a really good indication that the kids enjoyed themselves.” Michelle Crow of the Denali Arts Council, a sponsor of the project.

“The project has been a massive collaboration effort, with 4 schools, the Su Valley PTSA, the Willow PTA, the Willow Community Center, the Willow Library, KTNA, the Denali Arts Council, and of course ‘Art We There Yet?’ It is incredible to have so many organization collaborate together and have this project happen,” Crow told the audience.

The idea-get students from the 3 elementary schools that typically make up Su Valley Junior/Senior High together for a shared art and music project. Elementary students from the schools worked with artists Cora Rose and Jose Luis Vilchez, founders of ‘Art We There Yet?’ The couple travel aboard their colorful converted school bus, which houses a recording and art studio, work to help create art and music inspired by the Americas.

“Through photography, film, audio recordings, painting, and public art, we aim to document and share the diverse sights and sounds of our world. It is our mission to create art that highlights the diversity, challenges, and shared humanity of peoples across the globe.”

“The idea to connect kids with community art has been a long time coming, and it was truly serendipitous to meet the artists behind the project,” Crow said of meeting the artists from Art We There Yet, adding, “They are 100% the heart behind this. It’s so incredible what they’ve done. We feel fortunate to have them with us.”

First, the students debut their song, titled ‘Room for Hope.’

“For the past couple weeks, we have had a beautiful song in the works,” said Cora Rose, who insisted that she was simply the scribe and that it was the kids who wrote the lyrics, chords, and melodies.

“Across 3 different communities, we treated our song like a 3-layer cake as we stacked the chords, the lyrics, and the melody to create 1 beautiful song.”

As the united choir took to the stage, they sang of mountains they were not afraid to climb, oceans that are a rollercoaster, and discovering things they didn’t know, all while learning that whatever comes into view, there is room for hope.

“I will climb my way up to the top. Adventure is exciting; I never want to stop. Smiling all night, smiling all day. With mountains stretched before me, there’s sunshine on my face,” the kids sang as lyrics to the chorus.

Once they finished their song, the mural was then unveiled.

The mural is divided into 3 panels, each one featuring the different schools’ mascots, and instead of painting their own mascot-a timberwolf, a wolverine, and a husky-the students worked on a panel for a different school.

“I had fun. I got to do everything,” said Talkeetna Elementary student Benjamin Bryan, who is currently in the 4th grade. “We traded jobs where we would paint and the rest would help with the song.” He said his favorite part was the painting the Willow Wolverine.

Mom Mary Bokeson was happy to see all three schools come together.

“I thought this was pretty cool, and I’m excited to see how it all turns out with everybody working differently and coming together.”

Now that the 3 panels have been unveiled, the individual panels will be gifted to the corresponding to that school.

There was more to the project however, than art and song. At the heart of the project is connection.

“When these kids come together in Junior High, they don’t always co-mingle, instead staying with their friends and cliques. This is a fun way for the kids to come together without pre-conceived stereotypes, born from this idea of having them come together,” says Crow.

“Why has no one thought of uniting these 3 elementary schools before, when the students all come here for high school?” asked Jennifer Vironis, who was there to watch her son, who is in the 3rd grade and participated in the project.

“I love the idea of what they’re doing,” she said of the artistic duo “Art We There Yet”

“It makes us really happy to see how the communities come together to make this beautiful thing,” said Vilchez, who said this is the duos 22nd mural collaboration project. “This has been really special, and keeping the project going by supporting the arts and having the kids participate is one of our main goals.”

Vironis expressed interest in having more activities in which the students from the 3 schools could come together more often, form a bond before they meet in junior high, and not just with art, but intramural sports. “My son knowing there are kids at the other schools who will join him in a few years, she hopes it makes the transition easier.”

“The students from these 3 schools often come together after elementary school is over, and they don’t always co-mingle easily with the different students. They don’t know them and sometimes have pre-conceived stereotypes,” says Crow, who hopes to create other art projects like this in the future.

“We are so proud of what the kids have done, and they are obviously they are too, said Allison Wall, Teaching Principal at Trapper Creek Elementary, who attended the unveiling with Melissa Everett Laggis.

“It is amazing to see what our children have done, and to be able to share that with the families and staff, watching them come together has been wonderful,” said Laggis.