Magnolia Studio Portfolio Item, Wolf River Art League 2022-2024

StartArt Murals Project Booklet

How the community supported this vision was impressive and I was inspired to join the Art League in July 2022. I soon volunteered to design a booklet that featured photos of the mural artists with their work, descriptions and locations of the paintings, maps to locate the murals, past history of the Art League, and their future projects. [ … Read More ]

My first task was to sort through, organize, and choose the best images of the murals with the artists from nearly 1,000 photos. This initial sorting process was my opportunity to get acquainted with each mural. The artists provided descriptions of their inspirations and challenges during the creation of their art.

The Art League president, Lori Jo Schneider, wrote the text throughout, including: introduction, history of the project and fundraising, the painting process, history of the Art League, and future projects. I copyedited and proofread all of the text content including image captions. Eighty-four-year-old Ginny Pharr, another Art League member, was enlisted to provide green and blue watercolor images as backgrounds for every other page.

The most challenging technical feature was to produce the four detailed maps of the town of New London that provided a guide to navigate the town and locate the murals. QR Codes linked to Google Maps were included for GPS navigation. But my personal challenge was deciding which of the 50 pages to display on this web site. I generally choose sample pages that show different page layouts and design concepts which feature a broad range of my skills, rather than highlighting the content of those pages.

This 5.5"x8.5", 50-page, saddle-stitched booklet was offered for a $1.00 suggested donation at the 2023 Wolf River Art League's Mid-Winter Art Show to offset the printing costs. The New London Area Chamber of Commerce also granted a donation to cover the remaining costs and kindly distribute the booklets in their offices.
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Marketing Banners

After the success of the StartArt Murals Project, members of the the Wolf River Art League who lived in nearby Hortonville wanted to paint murals in their town also. In an effort to help publicize these murals, I was asked to produce a banner to be displayed on several buildings where murals were being painted, so neighbors and passers-by would know the work was an Art League project and how to contact them.

The New London Youth Baseball League also reached out to the Art League to purchase a banner for their ballpark during the 2024 Summer/Fall season. To save money for the Art League, I reused the stock photo from the Hortonville banner, and helped Lori Jo Schneider, the Art League President, select an engaging slogan for the banner.

Fundraising Flyers

The next project on the horizon for the Art League will be a Sculpture Trail along the Wolf River in downtown New London, with the theme "Life on the River". It will include sculptures of fish, boats, insects, birds and many other aspects of life seen along the Wolf River. These sculptures will be created by Art League members and other community artists, using recycled materials, welded metals, mosaics, and many other media.

To finance the purchase of materials for foundations, landscaping, installations, and signage the Art League are selling stainless steel engraved fish made by local artists and engraved with a family, group or company name and logo. These fish will be part of the first Sculpture Trail installation that is being designed as one large and beautiful school of fish.

I created two flyers to help raise funds for the project. The Sculpture Trail flyer includes a stock photos of a river and silhouette images of the types of metal fish that can be purchased, and is being displayed in shop windows, bulletin boards, and on the Art League website. The Election Day Bake Sale flyer includes stock photos, logos, and contact information, and was used in Social Media posts, and on the Art League website.