Tefillah room at Breuer school, Part II

After I finished the first mural, the school decided to take down an old bulletin board that covered the adjacent wall. This ended up turning a small project into a full-room affair.

The wall was badly damaged--full of holes where the bulletin board had been hung, and old bright yellow paint. The parents asked me to find a way to make it work with the mural, while still keeping the picture wall distinct.

Wall 2

I suggested sponging it in with the shades used for the sky in the mural-- pale purple on the bottom, which slowly transforms into a deep blue. This kept the second wall both simple and airy, and framed the mural nicely.

The front wall

Originally we had planned to put a simple inscription on the front wall, which would mostly be covered with bookshelves.

At the last minute, the principle decided against putting in bookshelves, and this set into place the final transformation of the room.

The principle thought that the front wall ought to be the most important. It was the wall that would be faced during prayer. She wanted another mural, and one that would strongly define the room as a synagogue. She suggested a picture of the Western Wall, with people praying.

The parents' committee were afraid that two murals would make it feel claustrophobic, and over-done.

I tended to agree. I felt that a painting of a wall would create a sense of enclosure--the exact opposite of the sense of space and air we had tried to achieve with the landscape. I also felt that a second, highly detailed figurative mural would push the project beyond the budget.

I suggested playing on the sky theme we had established with the second wall, while making the front wall echo the shape of the Torah ark that usually stands at the front of a synagogue.

Thus was born our Mizrach wall. Here is a close up of the "shaar haShamayim"--the heavenly gate. I used a projector to get the lettering aligned and centered. The verses where chosen by the parents.

Here is the front wall in the process of being painted:

Using the same color scheme as the other walls helped keep the room unified, and also allowed us to stay within the budget, by making use of leftover paint.