SU Mural Exhibit Opens at SU May 31
SALISBURY, MD -- Nearly two years in the making and almost 500 feet long, the mural painted on an eight-foot high wooden fence at the construction perimeter of Henson Science Hall at Salisbury University has been art/history student Pamela Knox Collins' labor of love. An Ocean City mother and businesswoman who returned to college after her son graduated, Collins has pursued her two passions of art and history, earning a B.A. in art in 2000 and now working on her history master's. The two came together the year she graduated, when Collins spearheaded the painting of a mammoth mural, turning an otherwise routine industrial fence into a colorful and entertaining visual history of the University, the Eastern Shore and the United States.
Soon the fence comes down. To commemorate her creation, an exhibit of photographs highlighting scenes from the mural goes on display, Friday, May 31, through June 12 in the Atrium Gallery of the Guerrieri University Center. An opening day reception is at the gallery from 4-6 p.m., and includes a farewell walk-along-the-mural.
The Salisbury University's Heritage Mural is a visual narrative of over 75 years, from 1923, when Dr. William J. Holloway, Salisbury native and assistant state superintendent of Maryland schools, purchased farmland, blanketed in cornfields and peach orchards, to build a demonstration school in Salisbury, to the present including the tragedy of September 11, where an SU alumnus lost his life and following which an SU student volunteered so valiantly. SU art alumnus Bob Bunny of Salisbury designed and painted the World Trade Center image within 24 hours of the disaster.
The construction of the wooden fence was undertaken through a collaboration of SU's Architectural and Engineering Office/Physical Plant and Bovis Lend Lease Construction Company, Henson Science Hall's builder. Historic designs for the mural were researched by Collins at SU's Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture under the direction of Rebecca Miller, director, and Dr. G. Ray Thompson, SU history professor.
A design committee was originally formed that consisted of local artists, SU and UMES art professors, SU students, local high school art faculty, professional sign painters and a museum curator. Each artist was given a 10-year packet of history
information containing historical images of SU's programs, buildings and events. The 75 years are divided into nine 10-year segments from 1925 through 2002. From the packets the artists created contour sketches that could be made into transparencies. In turn, these transparencies were projected (after dark) onto the fence.
After projection, numbers were added to the sketches that corresponded with 22 colors of paint-creating a paint-by-numbers sketch that anyone could follow, regardless of talent. Over the next two years participants from the campus and regional community lent a brush to complete SU's mural-a vivid record of growth in the last century.
Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information call 410-543-6271 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.