- Richlands Community Mural
- Dickenson County Community Mural
- Norton Community Hospital
- Richlands Teen Center
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During the years of 2001 and 2002, I endeavored to engage my SVCC art students, as well as local middle school and high school students, in the making of community murals. The project was influenced by a Southwest Virginia Community College “Walls Symposium” keynote speaker and mural artist, Judy Baca, and supported by a Virginia Community College Chancellor’s Professorship grant. The process and result of these endeavors in two separate service area communities, Richlands and Dickenson County, VA, involving two separate “teams” of participants, (ranging in age from 13-70) was way beyond my expectations in terms of the richness of experience and the pride of place and personal endeavor that enveloped all of us. The aftermath and continuing process includes community college student production of fairy and folk tale wall paintings for a new pediatrics wing of the Norton Community Hospital in Norton, VA, and the ongoing production of indoor murals for a developing teen center in the town of Richlands, VA. It is exciting both educationally and communally, and in terms of our local heritage and future capacity as a community.