The Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College Appalachian Program hosted The Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest in Cumberland, Kentucky August 2nd-5th, 2018. 

What is a Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest?
 
The Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest is a gathering of artists, teachers, students, and creative placemakers interested in learning how to:

• Create enduring outdoor, large scale murals;
• Work with property owners and local governments to make public art happen;
• Engage schools, youth, and other community members in the design and creation of public murals; and
• Integrate the creation of murals into larger plans for community development and creative placemaking.

 
The Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest is a place for

• Visual artists who have never made an outdoor mural to learn the technical skills involved from veteran mural artists;
• People with all levels of experience in mural making to be with one another to trade ideas and experiences and plan future work; and
• Current and future mural makers to engage with experts in other aspects of public art making beyond the art itself—areas like fundraising, working with local government, and community organizations—and connect with national creative placemaking organizations and practitioners.

 
Participants in The Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest will find themselves in a gathering of people deeply involved and invested in expanding the role of art and artists in community development and local economies. 

Program for the 2018 Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest

The Mountain Mural Mega Fest began on Thursday August 2nd and ended at noon on Sunday August 5th. Most of the workshops were at the Godbey Appalachian Center on the Cumberland campus of Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College, with field projects in the Tri-Cities and the city of Harlan. Conference sessions include:

• Session 1: Intro to Public Art, Murals as Placemakers - presentation and some sort of activity, maybe a tour of the sites
• Session 2: Public Art, Placemaking, and Community Engagement - presentation and group activity - information about how to engage stakeholders, what level of engagement they should have and real life examples of engaging community in a mural process 
• Session 3: How to Design a Large Scale Mural - what is the image, etc - this will be an experience driven presentation, with hands on activities to come up with images. 
• Session 4: Materials in Mural Making - Perhaps another presentation, some sort of activity that is an investigation of substrate options, but also other mural techniques available. Mosaics, polytab method, etc.
• Session 5: How to Plot Out a Mural for a Wall - real time plotting of the mural on a wall, using the design that the participants have come up with in the design session. Participants are shown how to do it and then work in teams to plot each of the murals 
• Session 6: Tips and Tricks for Painting and Finishing a Mural - this is less a presentation and more the mural being painted with the muralist as a guide 
• Session 7: The Business Side of Being a Muralist - where to find and how to get work, how to budget your work, pay yourself for your time, other things you need to know as an artist/public artist. Insurance, hiring people, revenue streams, etc. 

GoodSpace mural, Lyndale Community School, Minneapolis

​Training will be provided by local and regional artists and by GoodSpace Murals and Forecast Public Art in Minnesota. Artists Candida Gonzalez and Greta McLain will lead the training for GoodSpace and will collaborate with gathering participants and local artists to produce a mural during the workshop.

Greta McLain of GoodSpace Murals

​Here in Harlan, the festival builds on six months of open community meetings during 2017-2018 about what people want to see in their murals here. It will build on mural work in the Tri-Cities and Harlan in the works from artists Pam Oldfield Meade, Elaine Conradi, and Lacy Hale, who will be in residence during Mural Fest. 

Tulip Poplar mural, Lacy Hale, Lexington KY

The Tri-Cities project is focusing on local flora—as we are located in one of the richest, most biodiverse forests in North America, and would like to promote eco-tourism. In this project we are engaging youth in both the mural production, and nature education in partnership with Pine Mountain Settlement School, an environmental education center in Harlan County. 

Registration & Scholarships

​Scholarships covering lodging, food, and registration are available. 
 
For more information, contact Robert Gipe at [email protected] or 606-620-3913.
 
Support for the Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest include the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Appalachian Impact Fund, the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, Berea College’s Partners for Education, and The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.
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The Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College Appalachian Program is the host organization for the Great Mountain Mural Mega Fest. The SKCTC Appalachian Program is the home of

• Higher Ground, a community performance project that creates original musical drama out of the stories, challenges, and strength of the people of Harlan County, Kentucky;
• It’s Good To Be Young in the Mountains (IG2BYITM), a series of conferences run by youth in the mountains;
• Hurricane Gap Community Theater Institute, which brings communities working on oral history-based, community-driven theater projects together with a national array of theater artists and arts organizers to strengthen the bond between art and communities; and
• The Southeast Kentucky Revitalization Project, which coordinates workforce development and training in job skills that support community development, including construction trades related to building renovation, hospitality, and design, and includes a branding campaign.