SYKESVILLE, Md. — A mosaic, part of a worldwide art project, was unveiled in front of a crowd of dozens in Sykesville Friday night.
Kids and grown-ups alike gave their talents to individual tiles on the mosaic, including Hannah Mitchell, a 10th grader at Western Tech, and Finley Weiner, a 5th grader at Piney Ridge Elementary.
"I made [the tile] in a memorial for someone that I loved that really liked art and music, as a way to immortalize them forever on the wall," Mitchell told WMAR.
"Something I did gets to be a part of something lots of people did," Weiner added, "and that's really cool."
The idea for the project, which spans several states and countries, was born of the tough times brought by the pandemic, Canadian mural designer Lewis Lavoie told WMAR.
"I like doing murals, I like doing these community projects. When COVID hit and we were all isolated, what I thought is, I wonder if people would want to do this."
If the response online and in-person is any indication - they sure did. The Mural Mosaic's Global Roots Facebook following is over 20,000, and the project has produced several similar murals around the world.
In Sykesville, a gust of wind blew a blue tarp a few minutes before the scheduled reveal; Mother Nature wanted to see the art early.
Within it - hundreds of stories, messages and pictures. And how poetic that right beside a shady tree and garden in the quaint Maryland town - the mosaic forms a tree, one folks driving and walking past can bask in.
"You see it from a distance, it has one big picture. But hopefully when you move in close that big picture disappears, and all you're going to see are the individual stories everyone is painting," Lavoie added.
You can check out the mosaic on the Weisse Miller Law Group building right in the middle of Main Street in Sykesville. Leaders hope it stays for a long, long time.
