Apollo-Ridge students combine art, conservation message in street murals

Colorful murals touting an environmental message are taking over Apollo.

The Storm Drain Mural Project is underway and 15 acrylic murals were installed this week throughout the borough by art students from Apollo-Ridge High School.

The public art display began nine months ago, created by Apollo-Ridge art student Kate Myers for her required independent curriculum this spring.

She envisioned colorful murals depicting nature themes around the borough’s storm drains to bring public awareness to the impact they have on the nearby Kiski River.

“I’m very passionate about the arts,” Myers said. “I believe that public art, or art that holds a message, is one of the highest forms of the visual medium.”

Myers received permission to launch her project after pitching the idea to borough council and the Roaring Run Watershed Association.

The goal of the murals is twofold: to raise awareness about storm water pollution and the importance of keeping the Kiski River clean and to expose Apollo to public art.

The project was funded by a grant of about $3,000 from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.

Myers project idea gained traction, attracting regional interest and additional support from the Apollo-Ridge Education Foundation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania ArtsPath, Armstrong Conservation District and the Allegheny Ridge Corporation.

Visiting IUP artist-in-residence Bernie Wilke collaborated with the art students for 20 days, demonstrating painting techniques and helping to select mural locations.

The students learned about how storm drains work during a classroom tutorial from representatives from the Armstrong Conservation District.

Myers served as cheerleader for some of classmates that felt their art skills weren’t honed enough to create a public mural.

“Students that said they couldn’t paint or don’t know what to do can now go and see art they made themselves,” Myers said. “I’m unbelievably proud to be classmates with these amazing humans.”

Each mural was painted onto a parachute-type cloth and then permanently affixed to sidewalks or roads near storm drains.

Multiple coats of sealant, a non-skid sealer and UV protector were applied by the students to help preserve the murals from the elements.

Cris Kostiuk, of the Apollo-Ridge Education Foundation, said more than 15 students created the murals.

Messages such as “Help the Hellbenders” and “Don’t Spill, It Hurts Our Gills” are displayed next to a variety of themes featuring frogs, turtles, Mother Nature, fish, planet Earth, wind and solar energy, deer, nature-based images and a river otter.

Myer’s mural depicts one of Apollo’s most famous former residents, Nellie Bly. Nellie Bly was the pen name of Elizabeth Cochran, who is considered to be America’s first investigative journalist, exposing the terrible conditions in a New York insane asylum for women.

It will be installed in front of the Cochran residence on Terrace Avenue.

“We used the historical society’s walking tour of Apollo to help decide where to place each mural, ” Kostiuk said. Based on those locations, that’s how some of the themes were depicted.

Laura Hawkins, coordinator with Allegheny Ridge Corporation, said the Kiski River has recovered from decades of all kinds of environmental pollution. She said it was a lot of watershed associations that brought it back to life.

“This project vibrantly illustrates the importance of maintaining that work. If you want to benefit from the river,” Hawkins said, “you’ve got to keep taking care of the river.”