In the details

A new mural was unveiled at Aldo Leopold School on Saturday, May 30, featuring sandhill cranes among a scenic landscape, created in partnership with the school’s artist in residence Naomi Moes-Jenkins.

The cranes, Moes-Jenkins said, honor not only the school’s namesake, but its mascot as well.

“I hope that they say, ‘Wow, this school really studied what they are about.

They really embodied what the spirit of Aldo Leopold is…’” Moes-Jenkins said.

“The mascot of the school is the sandhill crane, and we created the sandhill cranes as a nod to Aldo but to be a visual in the school.”

The mural is a part of a greater study across the school of Aldo Leopold.

“The school had a whole bunch of infrastructure before the artist came in, so the kids had a strong basis of understanding that this is more than just artwork — it’s about a story of the founder of the school,” Moes-Jenkins said.

While Moes-Jenkins has been an artist in residence at other schools before, this residency had her involving even the school’s youngest students in the work.

“I’ve done many other schools, but normally we’ve done it for middle schools — like the fourth to fifth grade up to the eighth grade,” Moes-Jenkins said. “This one was more of a challenge because we went with real little kids all the way up to eighth grade. One of the reasons for that was the grants that we had gotten and it was just the philosophy of the school. We wanted all the children to have their hands in it… I’m here to share my experiences and my knowledge and my talent with them and hopefully they’ll learn to think for themselves and be creative.”

Every Aldo Leopold student played a role in bringing the mural to life.

“It was challenging to an extent to make sure that every child had their hands in it from kindergarten all the way up to eighth grade,” Mose-Jenkins said. “It was pretty obvious the older ones were going to do more of the detailed work, but we wanted the little ones to feel like they can do what they can.”

In the finished mural, student work is in every detail, from the colors in the sky to the texture of the landscaping and the structure of the birds themselves.
“Every child had their work laid out for them and certain groups of kids worked on the cranes — the little ones flying and the big ones standing,” Moes-Jenkins said. “We did a lot of research studying the anatomy to make sure that it was all correct. And we used phragmites and other plants that were picked outside last year in the fall and then dried them and put them in.”