Third ‘Percent for Art’ mural installed in Mat-Su

WASILLA — A third art piece by Anchorage photographer Kevin G. Smith has been installed in the Matanuska Valley this year at Dena’ina Elementary School out Knik-Goose Bay Road.

The school is set to open this fall next to Redington Jr./Sr. High School, where Smith installed an Iditarod-themed collage mural this spring as part of the Alaska Percent for Art Program, which reserves one percent of the capital construction costs of public buildings for the acquisition and permanent installation of artwork.

Smith’s second local mural was installed at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School earlier this month.

The Dena’ina piece is a bit different than most of Smith’s projects in that it is a collection of individual images rather than a collage, like the murals at Redington and Career Tech. Each of the images in the Dena’ina piece is a photograph of details in the built or natural environment, and a key beside the piece tells viewers what larger picture the close-up image comes from.

“The idea is to encourage the kids to become more aware/perceptive of their environment and encourage them to go out and explore,” Smith wrote in an email.

The band of images is 6-by-130-feet long and is located in the three-story multi-purpose space between the gym and classrooms. They are color-toned to match the third-story glass relights, which are orange, green and blue. When the sun is out, the relights will cast orange, green and blue light on the wall.

“The idea was to make the images match those colors so that there would be an interplay of colors on the wall. Should be quite the show when the colors come together in the space,” Smith wrote.

Students will be able to observe the mural in their new school on the first day of classes, Aug. 15.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.