FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio — Roughly half a dozen grade 10-12 Fairview High School students took time out of their summer break to complete a new mural at the city’s fire station.
Fairview High School art teacher Ryan Graff said the project has been in the works for a year and a half.
“We were pretty excited to participate after (Fairview Park Fire Chief) Tony (Raffin) first invited us out to the fire station expressing his idea about it,” he said.
“While we were there, he took us around and showed us parts of the station where some of the other firemen in their time (completed) little murals. That kind of like helped us with our vision of what we were trying to create.”
Fairview High School students recently completed a mural in the Fairview Park fire station. (Courtesy of Fairview City Schools)Courtesy of Fairview City Schools
The result celebrated the fire department’s 100th anniversary with a patriotic mural emblazoned with flames and raised firefighter silhouettes.
Also leading the students was Fairview High School art teacher Chris Kaminski, who said the project required different skill sets.
“We’re always looking for opportunities to get kids involved with the community and work on projects,” he said.
“They seem to like to build skills that you don’t have an opportunity to build in a classroom.”
Because the mural wasn’t completed during the school year, as originally planned, some students weren’t involved with the finished product, which Kaminski said went through plenty of revisions.
“Students learned to be adaptable and flexible with the design,” he said.
“The look of it changed quite a few times as we went through the early sketches to meeting with Tony again and showing them some of the ideas and actually what it looks like versus what we showed him at the beginning. Everything is a process.”
Fairview Park fire station. (John Benson/cleveland.com)John Benson/cleveland.com
Despite the protracted process, Raffin couldn’t be happier with the three-dimensional results celebrating the fire department’s 100th anniversary.
“The entire art department put a ton of thought and work into this project that turned out amazing,” said Raffin, who conceived the project idea after seeing a similar mural at the Shaker Heights fire department.
“The mural is a reminder that the job is much bigger than any of us. It’s a reminder that there were department members here long before many of us were born and there will be members here long after we retire from our service to the city.”
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