By PAMELA GRANT
Cove Leader-Press
Work is well underway for Copperas Cove’s latest mural. Artists began work early last Thursday morning and continued throughout the week.
All of those working on the mural are volunteers. The leader of this mural is Linda Lapierre who came up with the idea.
“The vision is for hope,” said Lapierre about her design for the mural.
Lapierre described what she envisions for the final product. She said that the sunrise symbolizes hope. The silhouettes represent family living. With those, they plan to include silhouettes to represent every age, ethnicity, etcetera to represent our diverse community.
They will include abstract/stylized, oversized bluebonnets to symbolize Texas. They will include a representation for the five hills to represent Copperas Cove. The centerpiece of it all will be a 1950s style postcard of Ogletree Gap which will read “From Copperas Cove, With Love”.
“Everything we’re doing is with love,” said Lapierre.
Thursday and Friday, they were able to have various people bring scaffolding and tall ladders, so volunteers worked on getting the top of the mural worked on first. After the top was laid out, volunteers worked on sketching out the rest of the design. They are creating it in a paint by number style.
“The idea is to make it a paint by number style so that anybody can come behind us years from now and fix it and repair it or even change it,” said Lapierre.
“For me, that’s why I’m a member of KCCB…it’s not just keep Copperas Cove beautiful, I want to MAKE Copperas Cove beautiful,” said Lapierre. “Any place that I can promote the arts and bring people together is a beautiful thing…I’m hoping that, by the end of the project, we’ll have an all-new circle of creative friends.”
An early issue they’ve discovered is that, because the roof is flat, rainwater drips from the roof and can potentially run their paints or create stains in the future. They are working to find a potential fix that isn’t costly.
In the meantime, they altered some of their design to place some of their stylized bluebonnets where the drips occur to help disguise any stains from the running water.
Some of the paint for the mural was donated by Crystal Owens with Rainbow Heart Studio. HomeBase also donated some paint for the mural.
“This is a true community project,” said Crystal Owens who volunteered with the painting efforts alongside her husband. “I love it. Her overall design will be extraordinary to unveil to the community.”
“There’s going to be lots of contrast with the golds and sunset colors which will project all of the families at the bottom. We’re really excited with how Linda is doing this and including us all,” said Nikki Reazola, one of many volunteers working to make Lapierre’s artistic vision come to life. “This is a true community project. People from the community are really coming together to make this work.”
Reazola mentioned that there are a lot of members of Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful who are volunteering as private citizens to help with the mural.
“I’m so excited for this mural,” said Anna Rodriguez, who is helping with work on the mural. “I can’t wait to see more of them out here.”
Lapierre said that they are hoping to be able to unveil the finished mural in October.
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