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Joe (left) and Terry Chzechowski are shown in
October as they were putting the final touches on their mural outside the Westside
Community Center's hallway access to the Diakonia Preschool.
New farm mural brightens up hallway outside Westside Center's preschool
Nov. 5, 2018It might be called a rural mural.
Covering three walls and a door in a Westside Community Center hallway, the recently completed, nearly 500-square-foot paint job by Terry and Joe Chzechowski depicts a farm scene in a kid-friendly sort of way.
And that's all to the good, because that door leads into the center's Diakonia Preschool.
The walls now display a pastoral setting with trees, sunshine, plants and farm animals. The doorway looks like the entrance to a small red barn, from which an
Samantha Corinaldi (left) and Tiffiny Pieper of
Diakonia Preschools (five of them in all in Colorado Springs) manned a booth
during the Westside Community Center's second annual Community Picnic in
August.
Westside Pioneer photo
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“It's meant to be whimsical,” said Terry, who led the design effort, “to show kids where their food comes from.” For example, the plants are shown with their roots.
Before starting, Terry said she and Joe (her husband) met with Tracie Dear, the center's assistant director, to get ideas.
Dear said she's pleased with the Chzechowskis' art and how it's brightening up what had been a fairly dim, mono-colored, block-walled hallway.
Also happy with the result is Samantha Corinaldi, the director of WCC's Diakonia Preschool. “I love it, and all the kids do,” she said. “Sometimes we just go out to look at it.”
The artwork also fits neatly into Diakonia's spring curriculum, which will focus on gardening and farm animals, Corinaldi pointed out.
The Chzechowskis, who recently moved to Falcon from Saratoga, New York, created the mural at no cost to the center except for the paint itself.
Such a contribution is nothing new to the pair, who have been making similar contributions - often inside churches - for more than 15 years. “We do this for nonprofits that don't have budgets for things like this,” Terry elaborated. “It helps them get away from that institutional feel.”
What inspired the couple to move from New York to Colorado? Part of it was Joe having retired after working 41 years for General Electric's research and development center; part of it was the high taxes in New York. Otherwise, Terry said, “God brought us here.”
Westside Pioneer article
(Community:
Westside Community Center)
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