We are excited to present to our SLOCA and SLO County community our new SLOCAHS Downtown Mural! The ultimate goal of this mural project was to invite our larger local community into thinking more deeply, for the purpose of connecting them to SLOCA. We endeavor to educate for life, teaching students how, not only what, to think in a collaborative, integrated learning environment. We equip and encourage students to ask and explore enduring questions (questions that have stood the test of time) and want to visually invite our broader community to do the same through this mural.
As such, in our open call for mural proposals, the artists were asked to incorporate the phrase “Ask enduring questions” into their design in some manner. There are many directions the artists could have taken with such a broad, multilayered prompt. As a committee, we carefully considered all parties who would be interacting with this mural—our high school students and staff, the rest of our SLOCA community, potential SLOCA parents, and our broader San Luis Obispo community. After much deliberation, input, and conversation, we ultimately decided on this design by Kiki May, a three-panel piece titled The Beautiful, the Good, and the True. While this piece represents a bold, more abstract take than some of other submissions, we thought it would inspire conversation for drivers-by, linger in viewers’ minds, and hopefully spark curiosity in our community toward deeper questions than are typically considered on any given day. As a committee, the more we looked at this particular submission, the more we wondered. Although it may not be as clear-cut or schoolish as some may have been expecting, we liked its eye-catching quality for the drive-by viewer and its challenge to the repeat viewer to think a little deeper, to ponder a little longer. This is the influence we as a school hope to have within our city, county, and local region—to invite into the joys of wonder and wisdom, of all the goodness, truth and beauty that exists for those who seek it.
Check out our new location downtown!
We asked each artist to submit a statement as part of their proposal. Below is an excerpt from Kiki May’s Artist Statement, which we hope gives further insight and understanding into her design:
One of the truly compelling qualities of the arts is their ability to engage a viewer with curiosity and questions without necessarily giving any answers. My design aims to address the abstract concept of “Asking Enduring Questions” and dig into the values of SLOCA, while simultaneously creating a piece that ignites curiosity and encourages the viewers to start to ask their own questions. The piece is split into a triptych. Starting on the left reading to the right the panels are named Grow Curious, Do Good?, and Seek Truth.
Grow Curious represents the concept of planting questions and growing curiosity, echoing the SLOCA standard of nurturing “a lifelong passion for learning.” This first panel is also in the symbol of a flower because they have historically been a symbol of love and beauty, inspired by the Greek’s ideology that beauty is objective and eternal.
Do Good? addresses the concept of goodness being in interactions between people and also asks the question, “How is goodness defined?”—by religion? culture? Is it innate and objective? This panel also has a nod to The Creation of Adam as well as the question “Is there a God?”
Seek Truth represents the quest for truth. This panel engages with the question, “What is Truth?” The eye relates to the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and challenges us to question “is Truth in the Eye of the Viewer.” Or like the Greeks believed, is beauty objective and knowable. Is truth perspective or is truth objective? The magnifying glass also symbolizes curiosity and study as we seek to understand the complexity of the world around us.
The final symbol to notice is the yellow circle passing through the three scenes, and the dimensionality and development between the three panels. The yellow circle represents the sun, which has historically been a symbol of passing time and echoes back to the concept of a question that could Endure Time.
2 thoughts on “Introducing: Our New SLOCAHS Mural!”
I have been enjoying taking Isobel and Sibylla to school for different things, and being able to drive around OUR new school. It’s beautiful, and I told Isobel yesterday that I am enjoying the mural as well as the font on the SLOCA HICA SCHOOL ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing. We are so happy it’s bringing some beauty into your drive!