When I think about how Martin Luther King, Jr. changed the world it just leaves me in awe. Most of you do not know this, but in addition to being a musician and artist, I am an art teacher. 

Last January, one of my middle school classes chose to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. for black history month. I pondered how we could do this in a way that would be impactful and create a memory etched in the students minds for a long long time. 

I ended up creating a pop art painting of our honoree. After scanning it, I created a 6 ft x 6 ft mural on Adobe Illustrator and broke the mural into 64 tiles. I gave each student three or four tiles to recreate with oil pastels. 

The students did not see my original pop art rendering. I wanted to wait and surprise them. As they worked on their tiles they grew bored and frustrated. All of them were so confused because their individual tile did not look like anything but a mess of different colors. When they voiced concern, I kept telling them “take care of the little things so the big things can fall into place.”

When the last tile was finished, I pieced them together and the children’s eyes grew bigger than the fullest moon I’ve ever seen. I have never been prouder of my students, or felt luckier to be a teacher than I did in that moment.

I wanted to share out masterpiece with you today, on this special day that we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. I hope he can feel our love and gratitude. Also, sending a ton of love to the King family!!! 

After I started this project, I felt like all of my classes should pick someone great to honor. Being an artist, black history month is my very favorite month to celebrate. I have been inspired by so many incredible black human beings. I taught two fourth grade classes, two fifth grade classes and one sixth, seventh, and eighth.

I hope you enjoy these murals. We sure had a blast making them and had so much fun seeing what we could accomplish when we all worked together.

We have already started to prepare for next month. I will post in February.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day To You!!!