The TRAX Art Project (TRAX) is a multi-panel mural art project collaboration between the CrossOver Mentoring Group and The Art Station - Big Shanty. This project will give students of CrossOver Mentoring Group opportunities to make a significant contribution to the development of the community in which they live through art. The mural will simultaneously depict historical information about the City of Kennesaw and the history of students in the CrossOver Mentoring Group.
TRAX will connect youth to the community in ways to increase their self-esteem and their level of art and history competency while at the same time improving the quality of life within the community as a whole. TRAX allows the students of CrossOver Mentoring Group to learn about the history of Kennesaw and to express their personal connection to the area through art. Train tracks are historically significant to the Kennesaw area, and their image also calls to mind the idea of a journey through time and space. Many of the students who participate in CrossOver Mentoring Group have come to Kennesaw, both physically and emotionally, from other places and situations. So while they learn about the journey (“TRAX”) that brought people to the Kennesaw area and helped it grow, hopefully they will find parallels and “ties” that connect with their own life stories.
TRAX is also intended to help the participating students and the public audience shed those popular misconceptions that art should only look a certain way, only be done by certain people, and is only accessible to special segments of society. A majority of the content of the mural will be decided by the students, but the format will be simple. At least three vertical strips of canvas will be assembled horizontally into one large stylized image of numerous train tracks—embellished with words, images, collage, and mixedmedia— so that the canvasses will form different images if hung together or separately.
This will give the students a chance to learn about abstraction, negative space, and the unique challenges of multi-panel pieces. The format will also make it easier for multiple students to work on a segment at one time, and, once the traveling exhibition is over, each group of participating students will be able to take a panel of the work back to their home school to hang as a permanent installation.
This Grassroots Arts Program is supported in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly as administered by Georgia Family Connections Partnership, a GCA certified Grassroots Regional Partner.
Our partners include The Cobb County School District – Success For All Students, who supports most of the operating budget for CrossOver Mentoring Group; Big Cat Records, LLC, Cobb- Kennesaw Senior Center, Kennesaw Community Center, Kennesaw State University, Mt Zion AME Church, and each of the CrossOver Mentoring Group Schools will allow us to exhibit TRAX at their facilities. Our collaborative partner, The Art Station – Big Shanty, will allow us to use their facility to create and unveil the original exhibition of TRAX.
TRAX Project Schedule
