Pockets of Perception team members Eliana Pettigrew (left) of Wyandotte Roosevelt High School, Ilana Sarkisian of Henry Ford Academy and Hassan Jawad of Edsel Ford High School work on the mural on an exterior wall of Salina Intermediate School.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN – The students of the Pockets of Perception design team have taken on their largest mural to date, creating a colorful montage on an exterior wall of Salina Intermediate School.
Sunshine Durant, POP team director and an art resource director for the Dearborn Public Schools, said Salina Intermediate School is undergoing change, including the inclusion of more green space, with the mural being a bright edition to the school’s revitalization.
She said the exterior wall with the mural is part of a community center, so the art will be on display in a highly visible location.
“This is a great spot for it, and this community does not get a lot of recognition down in this end, so we want to draw more attention to the south end of Dearborn,” Durant said.
She said the student POP team starts out learning about the history of a mural site, as well as the community’s culture.
The Pockets of Perception mural design serves as a guide for the team painting the mural on an exterior wall of Salina Intermediate School.
The students start the design process by dividing into four groups, with each creating a design. They then merge into two groups, combining their ideas, until they ultimately form one group and incorporate their ideas into a collaborative design.
“It’s a whole process that I’ve developed where everybody gets their ideas put into the project, so no one’s left out,” Durant said.
She said the mural includes tea and coffee, which are a significant part of the community, and features a woman adjusting a girl’s hijab, representing an important cultural ritual.
Durant said the bird in the mural represents freedom, while the flowers are from different countries.
She said the book unfolds to tell stories, including a boy playing soccer and a girl playing volleyball, which pays homage to a recent school volleyball team that did well that did well in tournament play.
“It’s a huge statement in the community, and it’s probably the biggest wall that we could have picked here,” Durant said. “We do like to ‘go big or go home.’”
Internationally renowned artist and muralist Zach Curtis, 30, of Pontiac, who is mentoring the student team, worked with the 2021 POP team on the Blick Art Materials building mural.
“I love working with kids,” he said. “Teaching is a big passion of mine.”
Curtis said he hopes the young artists gain confidence while working on the mural, and he hopes that confidence will carry over into other aspects of their lives.
“You come up to a big, daunting wall and you think it’s going to be way too hard, but then you get into it and you’re like ‘I can do this,’” he said with a smile. “I want them to take that mindset and bring it into other stuff in their life.”
Curtis said the weather challenges are another variable with which the team learns to work.
Student POP team member Zeinab Zorkot, 17, of Dearborn High School said she enjoyed sharing her ideas on a project of significant size.
“It’s a really cool feeling to be a part of a big project for the city,” she said.
Zorkot said it was challenging to come up with the ideas for the mural, but the team worked together and were able to incorporate symbols that were important to the community into the design.
“It was difficult putting all those ideas together, and definitely a lot of things got changed around in the process,” she said. “It’s been cool watching it come together and actually go up on the wall.”
Zorkot said participating in the POP team provides a gateway to more artistic opportunities.
“It’s a good start, especially in high school,” she said.
Pockets of Perception team members Zeinab Zorkot (left) of Dearborn High School and Esther Olayade of Henry Ford Academy work on the mural on an exterior wall of Salina Intermediate School.
Student POP team member Esther Olayade, 17, of Henry Ford Academy said she enjoys working with the team.
“Meeting all these new people and just being able to get better at painting has just been so fun,” she said.
Olyade said she’s glad the POP team provides her with an opportunity to get out of the house during the summer, as well as to come out of her shell with new people.
“You get to do stuff for the community and you get to see people smile,” she said.
Olayade said learning to work with spray paint was a new challenge for her.
“It was hard at first, but at the end I kind of got it,” she said.
Returning student POP team member Eliana Pettigrew, 18, of Wyandotte Roosevelt High School said she had a great time and a positive experience last year, so she opted to spend a second summer working on a mural.
She said she could anticipate some of the first-timers’ questions, and she could tell when a team member might need to hear some encouraging words.
“I know how the process works,” Pettigrew said. “When we first came and it was a blank wall, I was like, ‘There’s no way,’ but now I feel like we are totally going to be able to do it. As soon as we started working, I knew it was going to be OK.”
Also on the team are Ava Assenmacher of Dearborn High School; Hiba Hammoud, Lauren Boyce, Hassan Jawad and Isabela Sierzputowski of Edsel Ford High School; Ilana Sarkisian of Henry Ford Academy; Isabella Mastin of Allen Park High School; and an eighth-grade apprentice, Hadeal Alawag, who attends Salina Intermediate School.
The mural, under the auspices of the Dearborn Community Fund, is made possible by the Ford Motor Co. Fund, United Auto Workers Local 600, the Dearborn Exchange Club, Robert W. Curtis, Steven and Faye Adelson of Steven Bernard Jewelers, the Kosch family of the Dearborn Sausage Co., and the city of Dearborn.
Pockets of Perception team members Esther Olayade (left) of Henry Ford Academy, Eliana Pettigrew of Wyandotte Roosevelt High School, Ilana Sarkisian of Henry Ford Academy, Isabella Mastin of Allen Park High School, Lauren Boyce of Edsel Ford High School and Hassan Jawad of Edsel Ford High School work on the mural on an exterior wall of Salina Intermediate School.
Members of the Pockets of Perception team pause in front of the Salina Intermediate School mural work-in-progress on June 28, with students Isabella Mastin from Allen Park High School, Zeinab Zorkot of Dearborn High School, Lauren Boyce of Edsel Ford High School, Eliana Pettigrew of Wyandotte Roosevelt High School, Hassan Jawad of Edsel Ford High School, Ilana Sarkisian of Henry Ford Academy, Ava Assenmacher of Dearborn High School, Esther Olayade of Henry Ford Academy, POP team director Sunshine Durant and professional muralist Zach Curtis of Pontiac.