CHAMPAIGN – When students enter the new Booker T. Washington Elementary School next fall, they'll be greeted with a mural they helped create on the outside of the building.

Students, parents and community members will make ceramic tiles that will be part of a 3-foot-wide by 16-foot-tall mural on a support column at the building's entryway.

Suzanne Berkes, a Danville ceramic and brick sculpture artist, is an artist-in-residence for the next two months at Washington (now located at Columbia Center while the new school is under construction). Berkes is working with Washington art teacher Shauna Carey and the school's students to create the mural.

"What better way to bring people together in the transition from the old building to the new building than through art?" said Carey, who came up with the idea for the mural as a way to build bridges among the school, its surrounding neighborhood, parents and the community at large.

The old Washington school was demolished, and a new building is under construction. It is scheduled to open this fall as a STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – magnet school.

The mural at the new school will be made of individual ceramic tiles that students, parents and community members will design and make. The tiles will fit together like puzzle pieces, Berkes said, to create an overall larger design – inspired by the kids – with themes relating to the school.

Carey envisions images of what the school means to students, of their ideas of what it means to be a scientist or mathematician, and of Booker T. Washington. The tiles might feature footprints to commemorate Washington's walkathons or the thumbprints of current students.

This week, Berkes asked a group of fourth-grade students to think about what they like about Washington Elementary School (both the old building and the new) and what makes them feel proud of their school. She emphasized that their work will be a lasting history of their school.

"We can put this clay in a fire and it might last for 3,000 years," she said. "Your designs are going to live for a long time."

Students will design their tiles in the next week or so. Berkes and Carey will then come up with an overall design for the mural.

After their spring break, students will experiment with clay, then begin making their tiles. The student work on the tiles will be finished by mid-April. Then they'll be dried and fired, and the mural will be assembled. It is scheduled to be installed the first week of May.

The school will also have open studio hours for parents and community members to come in and work on their tiles.

"We want everybody to get their hands in the clay," Carey said.

She received a $3,120 Illinois Arts Council grant that is paying for Berkes' residency at the school.

Carey is also using grant money she received from Wal-Mart when she was named National Teacher of the Year in 2006 to supplement the Illinois Arts Council grant. And grant money from the Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation and Tepper Electric Arts Endowment will pay for the materials for the sculpture.

To participate

Washington Elementary School will host a community meeting from 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday to provide more information about the mural. Any parent or resident who is interested in working on the mural can attend the meeting or contact Shauna Carey at careysh@champaignschools.org.