For several weeks last fall, about a dozen art students from Fort Dodge Senior High spent their evenings — and sometimes weekends — painting a custom mural on the south-facing side of the new Blanden Memorial Art Museum Art Education Center at 224 S. Eighth St.

With the opening of the Art Education Center planned for the fall of 2023, Blanden Director Eric Anderson had been talking to Deidra Miller-Clay, an art teacher at Senior High, about finding a local artist to commission a mural on the side of the new building. Miller-Clay had an idea right away — “Why not our students?”

After getting the green light from Anderson, Miller-Clay tasked her art students with coming up with a design for the 70-foot long blank canvas.

Nearly all of her students entered their designs, and they all voted for the ones they liked best, she said. The top three were then sent to the Blanden’s board, who chose the design by freshman Saiya Noborikawa.

“This has been months and months of planning, planning, planning,” Miller-Clay said.

The students were finally able to begin painting the mural in early September. The process of painting has been very “organic,” Miller-Clay said, with some students coming and going and stopping by to put in the work around the rest of their busy activity schedules.

FDSH senior Remy Smith was one of those students, invited to join the project by Miller-Clay.

“It’s been pretty fun,” she said. “There were some times where I’ve complained about the heat or bugs … but overall, it’s been really fun.”

After some painting shifts, and after cleaning up their supplies, the students would order pizza and sit around talking for a while, Smith said.

“I love doing things like this,” she said.

Smith said she finds it a little strange knowing that her and her classmates’ art will be on display for the whole community to see, basically forever.

“I never thought anyone would ever see anything I ever drew or painted,” she said.

The mural features a large sun shining over a silhouette of the Fort Dodge skyline and a series of colorful flowers.

The flowers are Smith’s favorite part of the design.

“They’re all very unique,” she said.

Hidden among the flowers are a series of “critters,” like honeybees, ladybugs, a praying mantis, a caterpillar and a butterfly.

As the group was working on the project, they received only positive reactions, Miller-Clay said — people honking as they drove by, and even stopping to talk.

“One lady said she’s been watching the development each day on her way to work, figuring out what was new,” she said.

One of the first nights, Miller-Clay said, a gentleman stopped by and got emotional when they painted the bright yellow sun.

“His brother had passed away that day that we were painting the sun,” she said. “And he said when he saw that, he felt OK.”

Several people have stopped by repeatedly to see the progress of the students’ painting, she added.

“I think the thing that touches me the most is neighbors are feeling a sense of pride in their space, and I think they’ll help protect and take care of it because they’ve watched us work and they know it’s the kids,” Miller-Clay said.

In all, the students have put about 60 hours of work into the mural, she said. They finished, just in time for the ribbon cutting and open house for the Art Education Center on Oct. 12.

In the fall of 2022, the Fort Dodge City Council approved the purchase of a parking lot and buildings at 222 S. Eighth St. and 224 S. Eighth St., where the Art Education Center is now located, from Grell Properties LLC for $185,000. The city paid cash for the properties, then reimbursed itself with money from a bond issue earlier this year.

The Blanden Charitable Foundation, not the taxpayers, will pay off the principal and interest on the portion of the bond issue related to the purchase.