New mural creates a fun space for reading at a Madison elementary school ...Middle East

MADISON — Even on a damp day, the gaily painted blooms, ladybugs and butterflies on a brick wall of Madison Avenue Elementary School seem to pull a ray of sunshine out of thin air and an overcast sky.

The new mural is a vibrant anchor for the Reading Garden at the K-2 school — a cozy gathering spot just out back from the school’s library and designed for use by students and the community, too.

Seeds for the project first germinated a few years back, with school librarian Tosha Nowell’s idea to take the library from inside to out.

“Lots of people come up here and play on the weekends or afternoons on the playground,” Nowell said, “so I just thought it would give them an opportunity to sit and read, and just have some books out there.”

Extra seating, outdoor cushions for the low brick wall and a still-to-come reading shed with bookshelves will make it an inviting hangout space during school hours and beyond.

“That area is used so much on the weekends and after hours for recreation,” Madison Avenue Elementary Principal Kristal Epting said. “ We have families that walk dogs back there, we have families that come to run, throw Frisbees, use the playground equipment.” 

Baseball and soccer teams practice there, too.

“Since it’s an active area for the community, we just provided an additional space to focus on literacy and reading,” Epting said.

The Reading Garden became an active focus this school year for the Madison Avenue Elementary Parent Teacher Organization. Members sold Blue Cards, which provide discounts at local merchants, to raise money for the mural, a reading shed, seating and whimsical artificial flowers, as well as other projects and student opportunities, said PTO co-presidents Kristen Shumaker and Amanda Wilson. Allyn Anderson was the chair for the Blue Cards.

“It couldn’t have happened without the parents’ support,” Shumaker said. “We’re very thankful for the support of our school families.”

Epting noted the mural’s tie-in with the importance of the arts at the school.

“Madison Avenue has been an arts-integrated school for many years,” she said. “Under multiple administrations, through multiple faculties, that’s just something that’s always stayed — an arts focus.” 

Epting said the arts can be “a vehicle for learning,” with teachers connecting academic content with visual arts, music, dance and theater.

Nowell sees daily how her library’s bright, engaging surroundings support and encourage early readers. Kids scurry to find comfy spots to settle down, books in hand. She might give them a flashlight to read by and turn out the lights, or let them crawl under a table with pillows and stuffed toys to tuck into a book.

“It’s the point of making reading a comfortable, exciting — not just a dreaded ‘You’ve got to read’-type thing,’” she said. “They think it’s a fun thing. It’s the enjoyment of reading.”

That is the type of zeal Wilson sees in her daughter, Katherine: Morning visits to the library are a prime reason the first-grader can’t wait to come to school.

“I know she’s looking forward to this summer,” Wilson said. “She’ll be excited to come and to play on the playground and read, too.”

The mural is the work of Clinton artist Lucia Duque, who specialized in murals in her art studies in Spain, where she grew up. Her artwork, measuring nearly 500 square feet, enlivens the brick with bright, bold colors and a visual buzz of activity behind the slender trunks of crepe myrtles. 

Its bounty of botanicals and bright insects suit the Reading Garden theme, and the word “Avenue” and a jaguar, the school’s mascot, tie it directly to the location. 

Several ladybugs crawl across the design, inspired by beloved late teacher Nancy Summerhill Gross.

“She loved that area and she loved ladybugs,” Nowell said, crediting former school principal Melissa Philley with the idea for that memorial detail.

Madison Avenue Elementary PTO Grounds Chair Melissa Shows said Duque incorporated all the ideas people provided: “She delivered, and more.”

Duque previously painted Mannsdale Elementary’s Measurement Garden, and she embraced the team’s requests at Madison Avenue Elementary. “They wanted something with a bunch of colors. … I was so excited that I could do something I really love.” 

Duque reached out for an assistant to help with the big project, and Sherry McAlilly, who had previously taken a watercolor workshop with the artist, stepped up.

“It definitely is Lucia’s project. I told people, ‘I just painted in the lines,” McAlilly said with a fond laugh. Her granddaughter, Eleanor, a 6-year-old kindergartener at Madison Avenue Elementary, was able to join in, too, with some brushstrokes.

Work that started during spring break was wrapped up in a few weeks. Construction on the reading shed is projected for the fall. Nowell likened the potential for a bring-a-book, take-a-book type of exchange there to “those Little Free Libraries you see, but on a grander scale.”

“I’ve had a few parents say, ‘Now, I’ll sit down and read, and my child will sit down and read their book and we just have reading time,” Nowell said. “To me, the more you get a book in their hand, and they enjoy it, the better.” 

Nowell said she wants the outdoor reading space to be inviting.

“You have students that truly love to read. And, they’re K-to-2. They’re small,” Nowell said. “I still have kindergarteners that come in here in the mornings and they go find a spot to read. … Anything that’s not forced is going to encourage reading and literacy for the students.”

The mural enhances that pull, Epting said.

 “The art mural supports an inviting space that people want to come to. … Your eye is drawn to that. You’re driving up the back driveway to the building, your eye goes to that immediately.”

She pictured families using the outdoor area there as a cool spot to chill out with a book as well as a place for play. “Taking the learning from the inside out gives them that option. And parents need that option.”

Shumaker said her kindergartener, Ollie, loves the outdoors and has gushed about the mural, which he dubbed “the decorations.”

“With active kids, it’s nice to be able to have some on the playground, and some be able to sit,” said Shumaker, whose four children include several book lovers and one particularly avid reader. “Ben Shumaker is going to take a book wherever he goes.” 

Schoolchildren are thrilled with the artwork, evident in excited gasps at first sight, and their calls to pals, “Look!” Nowell said. “You should just see the look on their face when they were looking at that mural.”

Epting said, “It’s always going to be a trademark of the school, in the years moving forward.”

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