SANFORD, NC - Tramway Elementary School students and staff took part in their second “Art for the Sky” project this week, creating a mosaic mural image with their bodies to demonstrate how a whole school or community can come together to make a beautiful picture.
Every student and staff member as well as some family members took part in the project, donning color-coordinated shirts to fill out the giant circle mural in the shape and likeness of Tramway’s “Success in all Seasons” tree, a staple symbol of the year-round calendar school. Over 500 people took part in the event this year, including the fifth grade students at the school who were Kindergarteners the last time Tramway did the project in 2019.
“It is a good opportunity to bring the entire student body together for a collaborative art project,” said Principal Andrea Cummings who was head of school back in 2019 also, “We realized it brought a lot of unity to our school and the current fifth graders were actually Kindergarteners at the time. We decided to bring it back this year as a semi-reunion for them since they will be leaving Tramway soon.”
The project is a passion project for Mary Beth Wiltshire who is the school’s art teacher and coordinates many of the details and volunteers who make organizing a moving project like this possible. She works with Daniel Dancer, an artist who visits schools all over the country creating Art for the Sky projects with students and schools from all over.
Wiltshire said, “I actually got the idea about five years ago when Mr. Dancer had an ad pop up on Facebook. When I saw what he did, I thought it would be a great opportunity for a big art project collaboration with the school.”
Dancer brings in a drone with a camera and helps plan the mural, using tools to survey and layout the design before students and staff fill in the areas with their bodies to fill in and color the pattern. He has helped schools create art for the sky hundreds of times and in almost all 50 states.
“The main reason I do Art for the Sky is teaching people we need to see the world in a different way,” explained Dancer. “We tend to think too short-term and focus only on what is best for us today, what is best for my city or my town, rather than making decisions on what is best for the whole. We have to see the picture with the end in mind, the end being a healthy world for our kids and grandkids.”
In Dancer’s mind, this project at Tramway was unique because it highlighted the strengths brought in diversity and unity. The artist noted, “There were a lot of reminders all across campus that we’re a diverse society, a diverse world, and it is important to celebrate it because that is what makes us strong. Seeing all those different colors, that really took me by surprise. I thought it would just be three or four, but it must have been seven or eight!”
On Tuesday afternoon, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds as Dancer’s drone spun into the sky to capture the images of the whole. Volunteer photographers worked their way around the circle capturing close up the smiling faces and interactions of each piece of the mosaic puzzle. After about 25 minutes, the students and staff headed back inside to class, but Dancer began his work on the video that highlighted the collaborative project to be unveiled to the school at an assembly the next day.
Students and staff packed into the gym to see the project that they worked together to create, and Dancer and the organizers all hoped that it was more than just a fun day outside in front of the school. “Art catches people with their minds open. It is kind of the ‘curveball approach.’ If you try to give people straight facts, they kind of tune out and say, ‘That’s not the way my team thinks.’” highlighted Dancer. “You expose them to certain art, for example, highlighting the importance of diversity like that tree, and maybe they see the world a little bit differently.”
Principal Cummings hopes that the project reinforces messages that the school faculty and staff work hard to pass on to each student that walks through the hallways each day. She said, “I think that there always is a huge focus on academics, but projects like this help students know that gifts in other areas are equally important.” She continued, “A project like this really helps them understand that their gifts and talents can be used in other ways and they need to look for those gifts to see how they can contribute to their community as they move up into adolescence and adulthood.”
