Leaves of Hope
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| The Leaves of Hope began as part of an entrepreneurial initiative implemented by former Southwest Arkansas Arts Council (SWAAC) Executive Director Repha Buckman. Ms. Buckman commissioned Arkansas Artist in Education Mary Sanders-Overton to teach Hope youth how to create concrete leaves and flowers and fashion them into a flower garden mural.
In the summer of 2009, the first leaves were created during a 2-week summer program at the Pruden Center for the Arts in partnership with the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services. The following summer, students in the 21st Century program, which is funded by the Arkansas Department of Education ‘s 21st Century Community Learning Center through a 3-year grant to SWAAC and Yerger Middle School, spent a week creating more leaves for the mural as well as extra leaves to sell at SWAAC’s Art Station and at the Hope Watermelon Festival. |
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During the 2011-2012 school year, the project was given a home at the Garland Alternative School by the Hope Public School District. As part of an awards program, these at-risk students completed the production of the leaves for the mural. Over the next 3 years, students at the Alternative School also created flower designs, learned basic drafting skills, and made grids for the installation master plan.
The Board of Directors of the City of Hope voted in 2012 to partner with the program to provide a home for the finished mural next to the historic Cairo-Fulton Depot, home of SWAAC’s Arts Station, as part of a fence needed for the planned Amtrak Station at the Hope Visitor Center next door. The City contracted with Bailey Masonry and consulting architect Clint Bailey of Bailey Design Build for design and construction of an 18 x 10-foot concrete block and brick wall for the mural’s installation. Installation of the much anticipated mural began August 6 by artist Sanders-Overton and Bailey Masonry.
The Leaves of Hope project has been sponsored by Hope Public Schools, Southwest Arkansas Arts Council and its members, Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the City of Hope, Arkansas, the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope, the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Arkansas Department of Heritage, the National Endowment for the Arts, and numerous private donors.