KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood is now one step closer to becoming more artistic.

At a press conference at the Kansas City Museum on Sept. 8, Héctor Casanova, instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute, announced initial plans for the project of painting the window panels and doors that are currently covering the walls of the closed Scarritt Elementary School, located at 3509 Anderson Ave.

During the semester, the class will attempt to cover the north side of the school. With over 200 panels and doors, the school covers an entire city block. The students will be limited to just the windows and doors, not the brick building.

At the official launch of the project, Casanova demonstrated the importance of public mural art, showcasing photos from Europe and across the United States, even in Kansas City, Mo.

"The beautification it can bring, especially in communities that have seen better days, is important," Casanova said, adding the history of the murals depict them as provocative, with social or political messages and poetic. "The important thing about these murals is they become landmarks."

Casanova worked with Northeast Arts KC on the window dressing projects and murals along Independence Avenue. He said that is where his idea came from and is using those murals as inspiration for the students.

"Cities have discovered murals as a way to divert vandalism in the community," Casanova said, as well as a solution to vacant buildings.

Since Mid-July, Casanova has been meeting with neighborhood associations, local organizations and prominent community members as a way of gathering suggestions for the mural art. He said he also discussed themes and subject matters with community members, as well as what is important to them to see in their community.

"What we have here with the Scarritt School is a gigantic building with hundreds of panels and what we're hoping to do is to have a much more unified, cohesive approach that has more direction from the conception stage," Casanova said.

The ideas and suggestions gathered from the community were then broken into three categories: peace within the community, heritage and diversity in the Northeast and history of the area. He added that the color pallet will be limited to three colors; black, white and turquoise. The students then presented their ideas for the mural with concepts ranging from bees to represent high functioning societies like the various Northeast neighborhoods and cuisine from Africa, Vietnam, Mexico and the United States to represent the diversity of the community.

"This is a huge project and the building has many, many more windows to go," Casanova said. "We want to maintain a dialogue with the community. The awareness of this project, despite our best efforts, is only a fraction of what we want it to be. I'm fully convinced that after the first section goes up though, a lot more people are going to be interested and will want to have a say in what direction we go."

If you have a suggestion you’d like to submit to Casanova, you can email him at scarritt.elementary.project@gmail.com. This first stage should be completed by mid-October. An unveiling is tentatively scheduled for 3 p.m. Monday Oct. 13 at the Kansas City Museum.

Sketches. The Electric Park concept [above] was designed and will be executed by students Derek Hutchens and Chandler Dudley. The tree concept was designed and will be executed by Alexander Holt, Baldemar Rivas, Sydney Monteer and Taylor Toone. The tree mural will be the centerpiece of the first stage of the project, and the students have incorporated a banner at the top of the tree, to include text, a slogan or motto. Casanova said this is one instance in which they are hoping to get more community input, to come up with the perfect text. Submitted Photo