In Norristown, student artwork finds a permanent home at Montgomery County’s new courthouse

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For a few moments on a recent Friday, Grace and Daun stood inside their high school library and silently gazed at a preview of the giant digital print they created together — a watercolor interpretation of the Montgomery County Courthouse’s iconic green dome.

Before the end of the year, their image will be prominently displayed inside the new criminal justice center the county is building directly next door to the historic landmark in downtown Norristown.

“This is really cool,” Daun said.

The girls are classmates and best friends who have become inseparable after bonding over their mutual love of art. Over the years, they’ve spent hours creating artwork together. Most of it has never been on display, let alone featured on the walls of a public building.

They said they never imagined a day like this.

“To realize that those little doodles can become something so big that everyone can see — and people in hard places might see and can interpret, and just live in — is very extraordinary,” Grace said.

WHYY News has agreed to withhold the students’ last names out of precautions related to the presence of federal immigration agents in the county.

Empowering communities through artistic ‘spectacle’

Their dome print is part of a broader collaboration with the county that will see original student artwork permanently displayed throughout the six-story center. All of it can be traced to programs facilitated by Fresh Artists, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that works with elementary, middle and high school students in disadvantaged school districts.

Three “spectacles,” as the nonprofit is calling the finished works, including the dome image, will be installed in prominent locations inside the new courthouse on Airy Street.

There will also be a large mural in the center’s cafe space. And a sizable sculpture is planned for the atrium, where the building’s information desk will be located.

Individual student artwork will also be hung around the building.

Organizers say they hope the creations will be a counterweight to the severity of a criminal justice center, enlivening an otherwise austere space where visitors may face the hardest day of their lives. In this way, the collaborators hope to affect the lives of Montgomery County residents for years to come.

“The artwork that’s going to be installed in the courthouse is very uplifting and gives you a sense that there is a lot of promise and talent in our communities that can be tapped and is inspiring in terms of our future,” said Neil Makhija, vice chair of the three-member Montgomery County Board of Commissioners.

From the perspective of the student artists, most of whom live in low-income communities, the project’s goal is empowerment.

All of the works to go on display are digital copies the county is directly licensing from each student for free. That makes each image a donation and each student a philanthropist. Fresh Artists brokered the arrangement to teach the students that their ideas have value and that they too can drive change in the world.

“Usually the children are on the receiving end — if they’re lucky — and given things that they don’t have, that they need desperately, whether it’s food, clothes, materials, education,” said Barbara Allen, co-founder of Fresh Artists.

“This completely turns the whole thing around,” she said.

Putting their artwork on display in a public building is also intended to give the students a sense of pride in themselves and in their communities, which have often been stigmatized.

“When you create something that then is shared, there’s that effect as a student, as the participant, you see how your work then impacts others. You see how you created something that only exists because you came together as a community,” said artist Ben Volta, who ran the student workshops in partnership with Fresh Artists.

A collaboration to demonstrate the power of art

Volta played a crucial role in the creation of the colorful mural that will hang nearly 12 feet above the courthouse’s cafe.

The final design, a collage that will be visible from the street, stitches together elements from more than 100 images inspired by the Schuylkill River, which flows just a few blocks away.

The students created those elements by painting on reusable gel plates and transferring the images onto sheets of white paper. Each student repeated the process several times to create a series of images for the project.

“We pulled all the ones that we feel like something special is happening. Like what happens when we pull this into the larger collage and the larger artwork,” Volta said.

Volta scanned their images into a computer and printed them on adhesive vinyl so they could cut them up and create new collages from everyone’s digital artwork.

Roger Allen, Barbara’s son and business partner, said the mural created from that work will be installed in pieces with the same precision and patience used to hang traditional wallpaper. In the end, the image will be 15 feet by 70 feet.

“This will be printed on a removable nonvinyl wall covering, so if at any point any panel does get damaged, it’ll be very easy to go up there and replace that single panel over time,” he said.

Grace and Daun’s dome image will be installed the same way. It will adorn a 9-foot wall outside of the building’s largest courtroom, a space that will be used for high-profile cases. County officials hope the image, meant to pay homage to the courthouse’s history, will be used as a gathering place in the new building, which will be physically connected to the original.

The atrium sculpture will be created using a twist on the mural process. The sculpture’s final design has not yet been approved, but it will also draw on local imagery created by students.

For Daun, having a building full of student artwork sends an “extremely meaningful” message about the power of art to build community.

The county could have easily contracted with professional artists, she said, but instead agreed to amplify the creativity of its children.

“For them to be included, it marks their journeys. And with all the adults who will be walking in and out of that place, it also kind of shows their journey in a way and how they’ve grown up to be,” she said.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series that explores the impact of creativity on student learning and success. WHYY and this series are supported by the Marrazzo Family Foundation, a foundation focused on fostering creativity in Philadelphia youth, which is led by Ellie and Jeffrey Marrazzo. WHYY News produces independent, fact-based news content for audiences in Greater Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey.