It’s been hard to find bright spots in the world lately, so we thought you might want to see the latest big mural from Verona artist Elina Rosenblum. She started with a blank, 40-foot-long exterior wall of a daycare in Livingston and a request by the center’s owner to “color it happy.”
“The idea in the mural is to reflect how kids spend a whole day at the daycare,” Rosenblum says. “That’s why, from left to right, you see morning turning into afternoon and then into evening with the sun setting and the stars appearing.” She designed the mural so that it does not represent any one specific fairy tale but inspires the kids to exercise their imagination and create their own stories.
To that end, there are “hidden” symbolic messages throughout the mural, Rosenbloom says. “The kids are represented as flowers and even flowerbuds, which are growing and waiting to bloom,” she says. “Some of the daycare activities are also represented — music, art, soccer, playhouse. There is a four-leaf clover growing in the garden. If you can find it, you’ll have good luck!”
It took Rosenblum a bit more than six weeks to create the mural, which she finished near the end of November. “A couple of times my older kids and friends came to help with painting, and they had a great time,” she says. “The mural painting experience and dealing with happy colors is truly awesome and therapeutic.”
“I created a colorful, whimsical garden with interesting details like gnomes to provide an upbeat daycare atmosphere,” Rosenblum says. “Both kids and adults love it. While I was working I also received a lot of gratitude from passersby who work or live in adjacent buildings, who told me that now their day starts with a smile.”
Rosenblum created a short video about making the mural and posted it to Facebook. The music for the video was created by another creative Verona resident, she says: “My husband Michael Rosenblum.”
