Post-It Note Mural
In 2008 I had the opportunity of working on a mural project with a rather unusual media: Post-It Notes. The worship arts pastor at Topeka Bible Church challenged me with this task after seeing Iowa artist Shay Hovell's Post-It Note Mona Lisa.
Post-It Notes were included in all of the bulletins passed out at the three regular Sunday worship services, and the congregation was asked to write the names of three people in their life that needed prayer, especially if they were nonbelievers. To add a nice element of intrigue, everyone was not told what we had planned to do with all the notes, just that we had something special in mind. All the notes were collected, counted, and photo copied. And then the notes were given to me in order to start the mural, which in essence, became a sort of prayer wall. The final mural ended up being just over 3 feet tall by 5 feet wide and incorporated approximately 670 Post-It Notes. My best estimate is that I put in about 25 hours of labor producing the work. But the most impressive stat about the work is the fact that over 1,200 names were generated for prayer from church members!
I was really excited about the potential impact of this work as it became essentially a large aesthetic object to focus and direct the attention of the congregation as we made the communal effort to pray for all the people listed on the notes. In fact, as I worked on the piece, I tried to remember to take the time a say a quick prayer for each of the names as I placed them on the masonite board. while I certainly didn't get to everyone, as my right brain kept getting distracted in my efforts, it certainly made the process much more personal.
In terms of producing the work, it was an interesting challenge right from the beginning. While I did get to select the colors of the notes to be distributed, there was no way of knowing how many of each color would be returned. True to form though, God made sure I had exactly the right number of notes to get the mural finished.
I took a few cues from Chuck Close and Henri Matisse during production as well. Henri Matisse's cut paper compositions were a great source of inspiration as I cut up clean notes and scattered them about to try and create some texture and directional force in the foreground. And Chuck Close's use of optical blending in his paintings also danced around in my head as I tried to break up the large square "pixels" of the individual notes. The wise men on the camels are actually negative space cut out of the notes, thus revealing the masonite beneath.
Post-It Notes were included in all of the bulletins passed out at the three regular Sunday worship services, and the congregation was asked to write the names of three people in their life that needed prayer, especially if they were nonbelievers. To add a nice element of intrigue, everyone was not told what we had planned to do with all the notes, just that we had something special in mind. All the notes were collected, counted, and photo copied. And then the notes were given to me in order to start the mural, which in essence, became a sort of prayer wall. The final mural ended up being just over 3 feet tall by 5 feet wide and incorporated approximately 670 Post-It Notes. My best estimate is that I put in about 25 hours of labor producing the work. But the most impressive stat about the work is the fact that over 1,200 names were generated for prayer from church members!
I was really excited about the potential impact of this work as it became essentially a large aesthetic object to focus and direct the attention of the congregation as we made the communal effort to pray for all the people listed on the notes. In fact, as I worked on the piece, I tried to remember to take the time a say a quick prayer for each of the names as I placed them on the masonite board. while I certainly didn't get to everyone, as my right brain kept getting distracted in my efforts, it certainly made the process much more personal.
In terms of producing the work, it was an interesting challenge right from the beginning. While I did get to select the colors of the notes to be distributed, there was no way of knowing how many of each color would be returned. True to form though, God made sure I had exactly the right number of notes to get the mural finished.
I took a few cues from Chuck Close and Henri Matisse during production as well. Henri Matisse's cut paper compositions were a great source of inspiration as I cut up clean notes and scattered them about to try and create some texture and directional force in the foreground. And Chuck Close's use of optical blending in his paintings also danced around in my head as I tried to break up the large square "pixels" of the individual notes. The wise men on the camels are actually negative space cut out of the notes, thus revealing the masonite beneath.
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