Municipal Pool Murals Part 1

On July First the Old Salt and I went to  a Christian Biker Rally and motorcycle show being held in the city park of our county seat.  The first thing I noticed when we got to the park was that the city pool had been given a frosting of murals since my last visit there several years ago.

I posted these closeup photos in the order they are shown in the above photo. This shot is the first and starts on the left front of the building and each following shot works it's way around to the end of the building on the right.

I spoke with the head of the parks department and learned that they were having such a problem with graffiti that he hoped painting murals on the building would deter the vandals.

With the approval of the city counsel, he consulted the art teachers at the local high school. They came up with a contest where students entered a drawing of a scene they would like to paint on the building with a aquatic or fun summer theme.

Once all the winners were chosen the project was done over the course of the summer of 2010.  Each student design had to fill a given amount of space on the building.  Each artist signed their section of the wall.

Rumor has it that these students took such pride in their part of the work that some of them started guarding the murals at night (at first) to prevent the graffiti artist from defacing their work.

These rumors also said there were some encounters and the students came away the victors. The word about the pool guards spread and there hasn't been any problems with graffiti since the students returned to school that fall.

The next summer another contest was held and the walls inside and outside the pool building were covered with murals.  I made a second trip to photograph those murals and I will be featuring them next week.  So, remember to come back for the rest of the student done artwork at the City of Union, Missouri Municipal Pool.  

Linking to Monday Murals.