The Chandler Public Library had received a grant to update their youth areas. They had labeled them Create, Play, Learn Spaces. The Spaces are located in each of Chandler’s public libraries and prepare children for kindergarten through rotating activities designed to help them with five critical skills needed for kindergarten: reading, singing, playing, writing and talking.
I was asked to create a mural for the Downtown Library Space. They wanted a mural set in the desert that represented the five critical skills and was still fun and allowed for some interactivity for kids. The solution I developed was focused on different desert-dwelling animals (and not so desert-dwelling…) doing activities that fell under the five critical skills. There’s a coyote singing, a group of animals talking to each other, some are playing basketball, etc. There are even a growth chart and a selfie station for kids to pose for their parents with the books they’ve checked out; with a note to tag the library if posted to social media. Given the scale, I thought a game of “I spy” would be a great way for patrons to really see all that is happening in the mural.
Overall the mural has been a tremendous success and still gets mentions on social media a couple years later.
