Mentor Mural Program
Since the inception of the Mentor Mural Project in 2020, more than 50 vibrant murals have been created in Creston and surrounding towns. Through this program, Creston area youth complete community service hours working in partnership with professional artists to create public art, connecting the youth to the community through the creation of public works. Through the Mentor Mural Project, youth learn a variety of trade skills while contributing to creative collaborative projects.
The Mentor Mural Program is a collaboration between students of Creston Community High School, Creston Arts, local businesses and volunteers, the Department of Health and Human Services, Creston and Leon cluster decategorization projects, Juvenile Court Services, CWC, Conover Family Trust, Knock Family Foundation, Iowa Arts Council, and the National Academy of Design.
Check out the episode about the mural project filmed by Creston’s own Laurel Bower of PBS!
“It all started with painting two walls, I never knew we would end up painting twenty-two murals in 2020.”
- Bailey Fry-Schnormeier
Virtual Mural Gallery
2020 Murals
Endangered Iowa
Hoover scholarship recipient Tatelyn Schultz proposed allowing youth with court-ordered community service hours to fulfill those hours by assisting professional artists in creating public murals. Tatelyn also wanted to spread awareness about the endangered wildlife of Iowa.
Three murals were created based on Tatelyn’s project proposal: 'Endangered Species of Iowa', 'Honor the Earth', and 'Dallas'.
Hometown Heroes
Hometown heroes are local artists who have been a staple in our community for years: a creative placemaker, a comic book artist, a tattoo artist, a printmaker, a couple college art students, and an animator. These artists who were not muralists were asked to assist us in creating mural mockups that would be painted by youth artists, lead by adult volunteers.
2021 Murals
More Artists!
The program grew as we invited more artists of diverse backgrounds from across the country and even internationally! We had such an overwhelmingly positive experience working with professionals in 2020 that we made it a priority to work more with professional artists moving forward. In 2021 we invited 6 artists back to Creston to work with youth a second time. This made the process more streamlined and even more successful than the year before.
