Waiting in the Wings
Campbell Plaza in Salina, Kansas, 2010-2021
Lead Artist – Dave Loewenstein, Assistant – Debbie Harbin-Wagner, with more than fifty volunteer painters
This collaborative mural was developed around the ideas of mentorship and creative exploration. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts as a part of the Smokey Hill River Festival, the composition is divided into a brightly lit and colorful 'center stage' and shadowed more monochromatic areas 'off stage - waiting in the wings.' Framing the mural on the left and right are representations of theater curtains. The young boy on the right and girl on the left seated in chairs are adapted from the relief above the entryway to Lincoln School. They are mentored/inspired/guided by teachers who pass along tools to help them along as they develop their art. Accompanying these figures 'waiting in the wings' are other figures walking along high wires of artistic exploration. At the edge of the light and shadowed areas of the design, there appear new much larger representations the boy and girl (suggested specifically by Sawan Patidar) as they cross over onto the lit 'stage' with tools of self expression. (Most of these figures are based on Salina folk who posed for the mural). The center 'stage' section of the mural is based on a detail of a tile relief on the United Building designed by Charles Shaver.
