CENTER – On Aug. 4, the Town of Center and artist Bianca Maestas hosted a community mural paint by numbers event at the 300 block of Worth Street.
People of all ages were invited to participate in this beautiful mural project. The Town of Center hosted it as a way to help beautify the downtown area.
The San Luis Valley Agriculture Coalition was having an agriculture appreciation barbecue an encouraged people at their event to also participate in the mural project.
According to Lisa Lucero, a member of the San Luis Valley Agriculture Coalition, and the director of Community Engagement for the San Luis Valley Area Health Education Center, the origins of the paint by numbers mural was from a community survey. A mural was decided for Center. Part of the survey also asked community members what they thought of when they thought of Center. The community stated that they thought of family and community. The paint by numbers mural represents a community quilt.
Maestas was chosen by a committee to create and design the community quilt mural. Committee member Lares Feliciano talked about the selection process.
“It was an awesome opportunity,” Feliciano said. “We had a handful of submissions from all over the state, not just from the Valley. Bianca presented this beautiful proposal that was bright and joyful but also rooted in the earth and agriculture, and the joy and experience of production. We enjoyed her presentation and chose her. It’s been really cool to watch this all unfold.”
Maestas talked about the creation of the mural.
“If you look at the community quilt pattern there are a lot of different things here,” she said. “There is a community weaving through time, there are different flowers featured in the area. We have potato flowers, canola flowers, and alfalfa flowers. There’s a view of the fields representing agriculture.”
Maestas said the paint by numbers was put in the mural, on all the pictures, with the idea that people of any age could help paint the mural. Maestas said that many people had been by to help paint, “mostly children.”
“I also wanted to make the mural easy and not too complicated, so that small children and anyone else that wanted to, could enjoy painting the mural,” she said.
Lucero said she enjoyed being a voice regarding the mural painting in Center.
“I had been wanting to do something like this forever. I cannot take any credit for this, except to be one of the biggest voices in the room. I maybe helped the process along by helping with the marketing and making sure it happened on the same day as the barbecue. I did enjoy being a part of the process,” Lucero said.
Lucero said she enjoyed seeing a little girl painting at the site.
“She is a little artist, and her mom is too,” Lucero said. “It was so cute she texted all her little friends, to help her paint that night, and they all came down too. Another aspect of the mural that I really liked was that agricultural workers were involved in the painting. I have a picture that I took, where there were a lot of H2H workers painting the mural. If you think about it, they may not come back next year, but their spirit, a piece of them, will always be in Center, because they painted there.”
