By MARIE MCCOLM
CENTER – On August 4, the City of Center and artist Bianca Maestas hosted a paint by numbers event for the community in the 300 block of Worth Street.
People of all ages were invited to participate in this beautiful mural project. The City of Center hosted the project to help beautify the city center.
The San Luis Valley Agriculture Coalition hosted a barbecue to celebrate agriculture and encouraged people at their event to also get involved in the mural project.
According to Lisa Lucero, a member of the San Luis Valley Agriculture Coalition and community engagement director for the San Luis Valley Area Health Education Center, the origin of the paint-by-numbers mural came from a community survey. They decided to create a mural for the center. The survey also asked community members what they think of when they think of the center. The community said they think of family and community. The paint-by-numbers mural represents a community quilt.
Maestas was selected by a committee to design the community quilt mural. Committee member Lares Feliciano spoke about the selection process.
“It was a great opportunity,” Feliciano said. “We had a handful of submissions from all over the state, not just the Valley. Bianca presented this beautiful proposal that was bright and cheerful, but also rooted in the earth and agriculture and the joy and experience of production. We liked her presentation and chose her. It was really cool to watch it all come together.”
Maestas spoke about the creation of the mural.
“If you look at the community quilt pattern, you see a lot of different things here,” she said. “It’s a community that goes through time, there are different flowers in the area. We have potato flowers, canola flowers, alfalfa flowers. There’s a view of the fields that represents agriculture.”
Maestas said the paint-by-numbers technique was applied to all of the mural’s images, with the idea that people of all ages could help paint the mural. Maestas said many people have stopped by to help with the painting, “mostly kids.”
“I also wanted to make the mural simple and not too complicated, so that even small children and anyone else who wants to can have fun painting the mural,” she said.
Lucero said she enjoyed voicing her opinion about the mural at the center.
“I’ve always wanted to do something like this. I can’t take any credit for it other than being one of the loudest voices in the room. I may have helped move the process along by helping with the marketing and making sure it was the same day as the barbecue. I really enjoyed being part of the process,” Lucero said.
Lucero said she enjoyed watching a little girl paint.
“She’s a little artist, and so is her mom,” Lucero said. “It was so sweet that she texted all her little friends to come help her paint that night, and they all came, too. Another aspect of the mural that I really liked was that farmworkers were involved in the painting. I have a picture that I took of a lot of H2H staff painting the mural. When you think about it, they may not come back next year, but their spirit, a part of them, will always be at the center because they painted there.”
