SAGUACHE COUNTY— Mural artist GiGi Douglas has been working with Valley students over the last several years creating art and is continuing to do so with Moffat School and Crestone Charter School students.
This Thursday she will be at the Moffat Consolidated School and on Saturday she will meet with students at the Crestone Town Park for painting events that the public is welcome to attend and participate.
"I've been an artist my whole life and I believe everyone is an artist in their own way. It is all about figuring out the forms in life that can express yourself. I've been doing murals for over ten years, I also work in multimedia, I do woodworking and larger installations. My favorite forms are paintings and murals. These larger interactive pieces and murals encourage people to play," said Douglas.
Her website has this, "Using imperfect symmetry and contrasting shades of similar tones, she tries to capture life's ever flowing balance of light/dark, good/evil & positive and negative. She is constantly on the hunt for ways to promote good, which is why she often donates artwork to relevant causes."
Regarding her work in Saguache County Doulas said, "I got involved with these murals when I applied for a Saguache County Sales Tax Grant several years ago. When I did that, I was focused on doing a community mural with the students in Saguache. That first project was so incredible and such a learning experience. Since then, I have continued to work with art students and teachers in the Valley to do public art, usually murals, one in 2022 with Saguache students. I also had a sales tax grant for mentoring students in 2023. The current Moffat and Crestone are funded by the Saguache County grants.
"This year I'm thrilled to be working with the students and art teachers, Rachael Kellum in Moffat and Kristi Knight at the Crestone Charter School. Kellum was recently awarded the Educator Highlight Award by Adams State University.
The Moffat and Crestone murals will "explore finding a community-relevant and age-appropriate theme. I then work with the students, and we develop different creative techniques and strategies on how we create imagery and color pallets and come up with the design that all the students vote on."
The months of working with students come to fruition on Thursday in Moffat from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the school and on Saturday at Crestone Town Park from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Moffat Mural has a theme of, "Standing Strong as a Community," and is a Western-inspired design. The theme is what the students came up with, I love the design for this. The more we talked about Western imagery, we went to cowboys, which is the school mascot. The students came up with the idea that one of the garage doors we are painting, be warmer colors with a bunch of cowboys and cowgirls sitting together around a campfire to represent the warmth of sitting next to your friends. You feel warmer and better when you are with your community. The other garage door will be a lone cowboy standing in a cold dark night. The idea is that when we are with our community, we can stand strong."
The mural in Crestone will be an "outer space," design painted as a backdrop for the stage in the town park. "This will have a spacey black hole design," said Douglas.
