Norup students working with artist on school murals

BERKLEY — The students of Norup International School have been working together with a professional artist on murals that will be installed throughout the school.

Norup, located in Oak Park, has been collaborating with local artist Daniel Cascardo to create four murals that will go up in the school — two outside the cafeteria and two outside the gym. The theme of the murals is kindness and respect for all.

“They had an idea of inclusivity, diversity, education, community, and so they gave me those kind of catchphrases and words, and then I came up with a black-and-white design,” Cascardo said.

“(The kids are) allowed to, wherever there’s white, to add colors, patterns and shapes to the design,” he continued. “We say that the sun doesn’t have to be yellow and it’s not in this picture. It’s purple and pink and whatever. So they’re able to do that. It’s how they express themselves creatively.”

According to Cascardo, around 350 students from the school’s kindergarten to eighth grade have been participating in the project.

The project was organized by art teacher Lisa Ficorelli, who said she wanted the art to show a sense of community and power through kindness.

Ficorelli has been teaching at Norup for 22 of her 32 years in education. It also is her last, as she will be retiring at the end of the school year. She said she’s hoping that this mural program is something that can continue after she’s gone.

“I’m hoping whoever fills my shoes, I’m sure that they will do it. I usually try to do something every couple of years. There’s a lot of permanent art in the building. I think the community art with the kids is really important, that when they collaborate together and they work together, you know, it brings them together,” she said.

For the project, middle school art students are helping lead the elementary students in kindergarten, first and second grade.

“The older students are pairing up with them and mentoring them so that they can help them, guide them along in the process,” Cascardo said.

The students in grades three to five work on the mural on their own.

“I thought it was really cool that we were working with, like, a professional artist and painting up a mural for our school,” seventh grader Celia Rubin said. “I thought it was really cool and a good opportunity.”

Rubin said she loved working with the younger students and seeing all the art come together.

“I’m excited that I get to be a part of putting something up that Norup is going to have for a while,” she said.

Eighth grader Emmanuel Powell said it was fun seeing how creative the younger students could be and also working with them on the art.

“I think it’s, like, a really nice idea of having the oldest grades connect with the youngest grades and work together and create something,” he said. “I feel like it’d be a very nice idea to continue this.”

After the murals are completed, Cascardo will be taking the art home to refine it.

“I bring it back to my studio and I clean it up and tighten it and make sure that the design is coherent so there’s not a lot of one color in one area or if there’s any signatures or things that they slipped in there, I clean it up,” he said. “(The students have) been pretty good. And so when they come back, they’ll be able to say, ‘Oh, I rendered the sun, I rendered that tree,’ and hopefully, when they’re in high school or college or whatever, they’ll be able to come back and see it.”

Ficorelli said seeing all the middle schoolers work and be engaged with the younger students has been wonderful.

“I had my advanced artists — my eighth graders — with first graders and they were all hugging,” she said. “The little first graders were hugging the eighth graders when they left because they’d, like, made a little bond because they were working together.”