A mosaic will be presented to the Middletown downtown YMCA in honor of its 100th anniversary and another will hang on the first floor of the Art Central Foundation on North Main Street, said Sue Wittman, director of the arts organization.
The completed YMCA mosaic was created by 12 seventh-graders from area school districts and YMCA board members, said Jes McMillan, president of Mosaic Institute of Greater Dayton, a non-profit organization. She operates a mosaic studio in Miamisburg and plans to open a second location in downtown Dayton next month.
“It looks great to me,” McMillan said while recently standing above the YMCA mosaic while community members worked on the ACF project. “It makes me happy.”
RELATED: Sisters bring artistic talents to downtown Middletown business
Wittman said McMillan, who has 18 years of mosaic experience, agreed to teach a two-week summer art class as long as they worked on “community and collaborative” pieces.
The students also designed their own projects and completed smaller mosaics, Wittman said. Those pieces will hang in the student art exhibit, she said. She was impressed by the art ability of the students.
“It’s pretty incredible how quickly they picked this up,” she said. “I was amazed when I came up after the second day of them working on that YMCA piece. Mosaic is not a medium that they will ever do in school. It’s just not done very much. Just the fact that they picked up making an image out of tiny fragments I was really pleased.”
About the Author