SCORES Teams Up With Louis De Guzman To Create New Mural For Hamline Elementary
When students return to John H. Hamline Elementary School, they will be treated to a new work of art hanging in the hallway of their school courtesy of the collaborative efforts of their peers and Chicago-based visual artist and designer, Louis De Guzman.
“It started over breakfast a few months ago when a friend of mine connected me with Louis, who was interested in working with CPS students on an art project,” said Emma Rovics, America SCORES Chicago’s Resource Coordinator at Hamline Elementary. “As I was planning my summer curriculum I realized how awesome of a program it could be for our middle school students who have a passion for art. So I pitched the idea to my admin and we all worked together to bring the opportunity full circle.”
Although Louis De Guzman has been pursuing visual art for the last five years, he has been designing since he was the age of the Hamline students he worked with on this project. He is currently based out of a studio in Pilsen with lifelong friends and teammates, Amy Tran, Bradley Butchko, and Austin Neely. From the earliest conversations with Rovics, the Hamline mural was something De Guzman, Tran, Butchko, and Neely were committed to.
“We’d never done a public facing mural in a setting like this, so it was a fun sounding project,” said De Guzman. “When we found out it was for students who didn’t have art opportunities like this and exposure to things like painting, coloring, illustration, and design, it made it even more special. And beyond that, I wanted the students to see that whatever their artistic journey is, it’s important to know that there’s a future in it. These kids come from a lot of different backgrounds and will be the next generation of creative leaders, so this was my chance to pay it forward.”
For De Guzman, art has always been a journey of self discovery - a sentiment he tried to convey to the students in the program. Meeting via Zoom during the earliest stages of the project, De Guzman and Rovics worked together to come up with a design that was driven by the vision and self discovery of the students.
“From those conversations, we started working on sketches and mocks,” De Guzman recalled. “We kept it simple by starting with what we learned about the school’s history, logo, and colors. From there we came up with a sort of controlled chaos concept and that flowed together naturally. It was truly a collaborative process built on trust. The students trusted me to take what they learned and create something unique and special, I trusted my team to help the students along the way, and we trusted the students to bring it to life.”
The final result is a combination of colors rooted in the pride of the school’s identity and sense of community. “The hand reaching out is a symbol that the students are not alone. So when a kid walks by this in the hall, they know somebody cares. The teachers, the school, the entire community are there for them. The lines you see around the hand symbolize the different paths we go down and that we are all going to go through adversity in our lives, but there are people who are here to help us along the way. The hawk, the school’s mascot, is a symbol of those people who look out for us and a reminder to look out for others in our community,” said De Guzman.
For everyone who worked on the project, the end was a moment of accomplishment and pride. It was the culmination of a short journey, but a journey nonetheless.
"I am always so inspired by the students and what they are able to accomplish," commented Rovics. "They showed a tremendous amount of commitment from the start, worked at it every day, and put a ton of passion into their work. We've had incredible support from Louis and his team and the administration at Hamline, so to see the mural go up gave me chills because it's the embodiment of collaboration, teamwork, and hard work. To know that it's going to hang in the walls with such pride for years and years to come makes me proud of what everybody was able to do to bring it together."
Through Rovics and De Guzman’s mutual friend at Pogi Studios, a commercial film and video production company based in Chicago, a short documentary will be released about the project in the coming months.
The mural project at Hamline Elementary was made possible through funding by a Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant that enables SCORES to provide, in addition to Literacy In Action programming, additional enrichment and academic activities including arts, dance, gardening, sport, and STEM. Thanks to the additional resources provided via the grant, SCORES was able to extend its school-year programming into the summer.
