Submit sketch for USN's next mural

By Juanita I.C. Traughber, Communications Director

 

Henry Stack ’23 is leading a change at University School of Nashville.

 

For his eighth-grade change project, which challenges students to improve something around campus or inform people at school about an issue, Henry proposed painting the exterior wall facing the backfield. Now a High School sophomore, he is bringing his dream to life.

 

The mural will be designed through a contest open to all K-12 students, parents, alumni, faculty, and staff. Using the prompt “entrances & exits” or “along the way,” submissions must include a mural sketch and few sentences explaining the design and its inspiration. The design may not include logos and must be original to the artist. Entries should be left in the submission box in the Edgehill Lobby by Friday, March 12. A group of faculty and students will select the design they feel best reflects the themes, and the mural will be painted by the end of the school year by Art Teacher Joseph "doughjoe" Love and art students. The wall, which hides mechanical units and stairs from the Auditorium backstage, was built during USN's centennial construction. 

 

USN has four murals on campus painted by students, alumni, and Nashville artists.

Christine Slayden Tibbott, the late artist and teacher whose name is on our art building, left several children's book characters on the wall of the former Payne Library Room, now subdivided and used as the Lower School Spanish classroom.

 

In the 1980s, Nashville artist Myles Maillie painted a staircase that led to the photography lab and art classes. Since the Tibbot Center addition, the stairwell now connects the first and second floors of the Middle School Maillie returned in 2017 to expand it with High School art students. The mural of whimsical, colorful faces has become a USN icon. It has been used on T-shirts, and Mclaine Richardson '04 created a limited edition jewelry collection inspired by the mural to benefit USN's Artclectic Endowment Fund for Innovative Teaching in 2016.

 

The Class of 2025 and Middle School Art Teacher Joseph “doughjoe” Love III painted a mural connecting USN with the city’s prominent African-American communities in the 21st Avenue garage in 2018. Their project was the culmination of Fifth Grade Social Studies Teacher Connie Fink’s civil rights unit, which takes students out of the classroom and into Nashville neighborhoods to learn about their historic struggles. Using sketches from then-fifth graders, doughjoe — also a muralist with the Norf Art Collective — pieced together a cohesive mural. High School students in Art Teacher Emily Holt’s Contemporary Practice class painted the base layers, and some fifth graders stayed after school to paint wooden pieces affixed to the mural. Each fifth grader also had the opportunity to paint a flower on the soccer field.

 

Nashville artist Adrien Saporiti '06 also painted "High Fidelity," a mural of geometric shapes in a stairwell as a parting gift from the Class of 2017. The design has been used on tote bags.

Students and visiting artists have also sketched and painted several temporary murals at USN over the years.