"Dark Skies - Are We Listening" - A Collaborative community mural experience led by Beth Courtright Detwiler at the Tubac Center of the Arts - April/May 2021
These photos from "Dark Skies - Are We Listening?" depict an interactive, collaborative maskingtape art mural project, held at the Tubac Center of the Arts in the Spring of 2021. This community art project was done in conjunction with the center's appeal and application process to become an Official National Geographic "Dark Skies" Community. Aproximately 35 intergenerational participants came to work on the mural over the course of 6 hours. This was their first interatction with hand-painted maskingtape as an art medium.
I was initially approached for this project a year prior to the event by the Creative Director of the Tubac Center of the Arts, Karon Leigh. I was honored to be asked and quickly accepted since I feel very passionate about the cause due to the harmful effects that light pollution has upon the circadian rythms of wildlife, insects, plant life, and even humans. Many people do not know about the problems light pollution causes so I designed this mural project to be colorful, fun, and educationally enriching in order to initiate person-to-person dialogue with the general public, both adults and children, who were attending this event in April of 2021.
I titled the mural event, "Dark Skies, are We Listening?" as a play on words. This was a visual project based upon the mostly silent adversary of light pollution. In order to take note and make healthy changes, we need to see and identify the problem, so we can observe and "listen" with both our eyes and our ears.
The mural project was completed over the course of a days and would remain up in the gallery from April thru the Summer months during which time the Center's Summer Childrens Program would benefit from the subject matter.
An IDA International Dark Sky Community is a town, city, or municipality or other legally organized community that has shown exceptional dedication to the preservation of the night sky through the implementation and enforcement of a quality outdoor lighting ordinance, dark sky eduation and citizen support of dark skies.