News

Two New Murals on Campus

R. Hibbert
[FULL STORY]

Last year’s Friedler Family Artist-in-Residence, Max Bernardi, collaborated with Newman students to create two beautiful murals for an installation in the Reynolds Ryan Art Gallery. These murals, each covering a complete gallery wall, highlighted the plight of Louisiana’s wetlands and the wildlife that inhabit them. The art depicts the disastrous effect of human activity but also the efforts being made to help restore this priceless natural resource.
 
This summer, the murals were permanently installed on two exterior walls of buildings on the Newman campus. Looking like a giant jigsaw puzzle, How Do We Fit the Pieces Back Together? now dominates a wall of the Henson Auditorium facing Valmont Courtyard. It chronicles human interaction with the wetland, from early inhabitants to dredging operations, the impact of metropolitan areas and the efforts to restore the plant life there. The other mural, Moving to Higher Ground, towers above the Bart Park playground on the wall of the Lower School’s Stone Building. Depicting wetland wildlife carrying backpacks, Moving illustrates the forced migration of animals due to habitat loss. In both cases, these murals are intended to provoke thought and contemplation about the wetlands, why they are endangered, and how human interaction can be a healing rather than harmful force.
 
Below, artist Max Bernardi shares some of her thoughts on the two pieces. We encourage you to come to campus and see these murals in their new locations.
 
How Do We Fit the Pieces Back Together?
 
In collaboration with Newman School’s art students, I was tasked with portraying a problem we currently face in Southern Louisiana, the “Diminishing Wetlands.” This is a slow-motion disaster triggered by human activity as we altered the landscape by building levees and creating a network of canals. The latter was first started to harvest cypress trees for construction, then later for oil and gas drilling. No one could foresee the consequences of our actions. We all now grapple to understand the true scope of the disaster. And even fewer of us know what we can personally do to repair the damage we have done. This mural seeks to inspire all of us to face the imminence of the problem, and begin to work together to slow, if not reverse it.
 
How do you portray a slow-motion disaster in a single image? We developed our concept by brainstorming and sketching out various ideas. It seemed there were many parts of the puzzle to fit together, and we knew we couldn’t fit them all in. One was that all of Louisiana itself was a puzzle that was falling to pieces. One idea was to depict the past in color and the present in black and white, or vice versa. We weren’t able to act on every idea, but many of the students’ thoughts were synthesized into the final image.  The things we did include were:

     a) a symbolic image of one man representing our collective selves enjoying the bounty of the wetland before it was altered;
     b) the dredging that may be the action most responsible for the disaster;
     c) the image of the land as it slowly dies away; and finally
     d) the hopeful act of planting trees that Newman students undertake annually under the direction of science instructor, Jennifer Williams. 
 
Moving to Higher Ground
 
In collaboration with Newman’s 8th grade art students, we chose to portray the wetland creatures as they move to higher ground due to saltwater intrusion. Of course, there are too many animals to portray in a single image. One such animal is the coyote, not shown here, but recently making an appearance due to habitat loss. Some we rarely see because they scurry the minute they hear us approaching. 
 
Two of Newman’s high school students conceptualized the animals using backpacks to pack up their belongings, and we decided to act on this idea because it would help younger students to connect with them. It was also recently pointed out to me by more than one person (one was a Kindergartener!) that I failed to put any fish in the mural. How could I forget!? I will fix that soon.
 
About the Friedler Family Artist-in-Residence
Intended to greatly enrich our students’ understanding of and appreciation for the visual arts, the Friedler Family Artist-in-Residence continues the program established in 2007 by Donna and Ben Rosen ’50. The program brings a recognized artist to Isidore Newman School to teach, lecture, and exhibit his or her original work. The artist conducts workshops and one-on-one sessions with students, offering them perhaps their first chance to get to know someone who makes a living as an artist.
 
Back
1903 Jefferson Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70115
Phone: 504.899.5641
Fax: 504.896.8597
Open 7:45 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Monday through Friday
An independent,
co-educational,
non-denominational day
school in New Orleans for
early childhood through 12th grade