STANWOOD — A new team of teen artists is working on a colorful mural to fill a simple wooden structure on the hill at Church Creek Park.
It’s been a year since a group of high school students painted the park’s first mural and perched it atop the grassy slope.
The teens and their mentor say the mural project, called Project STAND, is making a difference in Stanwood. They want to show people that high school students have a voice and positive ways to express themselves, so they create art for a park that has had problems with vandalism and drug use.
Last year, community groups worked together to clean up Church Creek Park, along 72nd Avenue Northwest near Lincoln Hill and Stanwood high schools. Volunteers picked up trash and a Church Creek Disc Golf group raised money for a new course on the park’s wooded trails.
Project STAND was one of the most visual pieces of the clean-up effort. STAND means Stereotypes Alternatively Defined, and it’s about helping high school students overcome others’ expectations and express themselves, Coordinator Krystal Roig said.
Park crews installed a raised wooden frame at Church Creek Park so a new mural can be installed each year. Seven teen artists have been gathering at the Stanwood-Camano Community Resource Center twice a week this summer, for up to four hours at a time, to paint the new mural. The plan is to install it Aug. 20, Roig said.
Nicole Wierman and Victoria “Tori” Humphreys, both 16, have been explaining the mural to folks who sneak a peek while they’re painting.
The colors transition from dark to light as the viewer’s eyes move from left to right.
Toward the left is a school hallway where people stand by lockers and judge, and to the right is a brick road leading to the future. A large figure is on the road, an open birdcage in hand as the bird flies free. The person’s head is a television screen, symbolizing the reputation teenagers have of being constantly plugged in, Wierman said.
But the picture on the TV screen is a swirling galaxy of possibility, and there’s a larger, matching galaxy in the distant sky where teen is heading. A banner beneath the image says “Believe in your stride.”
“This guy, he wants to get somewhere,” Humphreys said. “He wants to be something.”
Most high school students can relate to that character. She certainly can.
“The reason that this is really important to me is I personally don’t feel like I accomplish a lot of things. But this got us all together to do something and I feel like I accomplished something that’s really important,” she said. “This means a lot. It means friends and it means a message I really care about.”
Silver Merideth, 17, has been painting weeds on the dark side of the mural and flowers on the bright said. To her, the image represents moving from someplace dark and negative to brighter, more positive place.
“Nobody really likes weeds because they get in the way of everything, and these weeds have thorns so they can hurt people,” she said. “But flowers are beautiful and make people happy.”
Fellow painter Veronica Velazquez, 16, brushed grass-like textures into dark shadows on the left side of mural.
“To me, it shows that there’s this dark side and that’s this dark place in society where you feel like no one accepts you,” she said. “You have to go through a lot of things that are hard to get to that place where you’re happy.”
The teen painters learn about teamwork, perseverance and self-expression, Stanwood Police Chief Rick Hawkins said. He’s been impressed by how eloquently they present their ideas to city leaders.
“I hope this continues on a yearly basis,” Hawkins said. “It goes well beyond what it does for the park.”
He doesn’t expect Church Creek Park to change quickly.
There have been continuing problems this year with graffiti, broken equipment and drug use. Signs from the new disc golf course have been knocked over or stolen.
But vandals haven’t damaged the mural.
Public art isn’t a cure for the park’s problems. Hawkins plans to increase patrols at the park during the school year, but police can’t always be there. When more people use the park, they pressure criminals to get out, he said.
To see last year’s mural still standing tells Roig that something is changing for the better. Young people have big voices and need ways to share their ideas.
“This is a creative way to allow self-expression without a lot of explanation,” she said.
“They just want to be part of something positive in their community.”
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com
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