"Cerulean blue peacocks and blood-red roses, cut from hand-painted tiles, stud the block wall at Sahuaro Ranch Historic Area in Glendale, a reflection of the real birds strutting the grounds and the live flowers blooming fragrantly in beds.
The figures are part of a mural that GED and elementary students in Glendale are working to complete to celebrate the preserved ranch's rich history.
Citrus trees bow gently with fruit next to skinny date palms in the mural. Fat-leaved agave, whose sap was traditionally used for tequila and fibrous flesh for twine, grow in front of dusky purple mountains.
Today the ranch, called the crown jewel of the city's park system, continues to teem with those same animals and plants.
Mart?n Moreno, a prolific Valley artist and teacher, launched the project with his students at Las Artes de Maricopa, a school that emphasizes art for youths age 16 to 21 as they earn their GED (high school equivalency) and build job skills. The school has classes in Glendale at 4306 W. Missouri Ave. and in west Phoenix at 4380 N. 51st Ave.
Moreno created the design based on historic photographs. Then he taught the young people to paint and fire the tiles, mount the work and complete the painted background on the wall.
After four months, the project is nearly done.
Moreno plans to collaborate with children at Horizon Elementary School in Glendale to fashion about 60 clay tiles carved in relief with historic ranch images to border the bottom of the mural. He expects the finished product to be ready by late spring.
"We're really proud of it," Moreno said.
The undertaking was an eye-opener for students at Las Artes, he said.
"We had this project going at (the school's) different locations and neither (class) knew what the other was doing," he said. When the pieces were mounted, "they finally saw the whole picture."
It was a lesson, Moreno said, in the value of being a small part of a larger mission.
Art like the mural has helped scores of students learn essential educational and job skills, after failing to succeed in high school.
"These are kids that fell between the cracks. They didn't make it through the traditional school system," Moreno said. "We use art as an instrument of education to teach them focus and discipline."
The kids practiced perseverance to complete the project. They fired tiles again and again to get just the right color or because the edges had bubbled.
"That makes an artist: the ability to endure and keep creating even though there are obstacles," Moreno said.
The project was completed with a $10,000 grant from the Glendale Chamber of Commerce. Las Artes de Maricopa also receives support from Maricopa County, Valley of the Sun YMCA and PSA Art Awakenings, a program that uses art as behavioral therapy for adults and children."
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