The Downtown Albany Mural Project
AMA Teen Art Board Creates a Legacy for Future Generations
Completed on May 23, 2024, the mural you are viewing was the culmination of a year-long collaborative effort that involved the Albany Museum of Art Teen Art Board, artist Ramiro Davaro-Comas, The Cookie Shoppe, volunteers, and students from elementary to high school.
The Teen Art Board is a leadership program for Albany, Ga., area high school students. Each year, the group decides on an art-based community project and raises funds to accomplish it. You can learn more about the Teen Art Board HERE.
This is the project decided upon in Fall 2023 for the 2023-24 school year. The teen leaders who accomplished it hope the public art project will be inspirational, help destigmatize downtown Albany, and be a visible part of the downtown revitalization.
If you are a high school student or know a student who might benefit from participation in the Teen Art Board program, the application period for the 2024-25 school year is open through July 17. The online application may be found HERE.
Each image that you see in the mural is based on an original drawing by an elementary school student from the Albany area. The young students were asked to create something that spoke to them.
Most of the drawings were collected at a special drawing workshop that the Teen Art Board led at the Museum in January 2024. Those drawings and others submitted by elementary school-age students were sent to Davaro-Comas, a professional artist from New York who has created numerous public art projects through Super-Stories, a non-profit organization he and his partner, Grace Lang, founded.
Davaro-Comas designed the mural from the Albany area students’ drawings, and came to Albany in late May 2024 to lead the painting. Members of the Teen Art Board, middle and high school students, and adult volunteers helped paint the mural, making it a true communitywide project. Expected to take a week to complete, the project was finished in half that time.
The AMA and the 2023-24 Teen Art Board would like to thank the generous sponsors whose support made this mural project a wonderful success:
- Perfect Strokes Paint Co. for donating the paint and materials;
- LRA Constructors for providing the bucket lift;
- Smile Doctors for their financial support;
- First Choice Family Chiropractic for their financial support;
- Mona and Munir Qaqish, owners of The Cookie Shoppe, for providing delicious food to the painters and for allowing the Teen Art Board to bring its vision to life on the popular Albany restaurant’s north wall.
In addition, the Teen Art Board conducted various fundraisers over the school year to help fund the project. You can help support the Teen Art Board and its projects HERE.
