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By TIM BADLEY
Traveler Correspondent

A life transition occurred for Denise Irwin when she moved to Arkansas City. She had moved away from her family in El Dorado to take a position with Cowley College.

"El Dorado is only 60 miles away, but for me it is a whole life away," Irwin said.

Irwin's family had an influence on her early artistic career.

"I played the roll of the peacemaker in my family," Irwin said. This peacemaker role in Irwin's life translated into her art. "I felt my art had to please everyone," Irwin said. "It lacked soul, and it lacked the real me."

Irwin's move to Arkansas City was also marked by her daughter's leaving for college.

"My primary role was no longer as a mother and it allowed my art to become my primary identity," Irwin said.

As a graphic arts instructor for Cowley College, Irwin tries to convey her philosophies of art to her students. "I teach students that art is the expression of who we are and our life experiences," Irwin said. "Life experiences play into the way we see the world and what we focus on to create."

When it comes to fundamentals of art, Irwin places her focus on the importance of line in composition.

"Line leads the eye and takes you through a piece," Irwin said.

Irwin teaches her students that lines can be direct like the ones drawn with pencils or brushes. Irwin also teaches that lines can be implied such as the lines created between shapes, colors or textures.

Irwin uses these skills in her current project for a mural of 60 panels on the corner of Summit and Jefferson. The mural will be painted with a technique called painting by numbers and she hopes to have over 1,000 community members to help paint it.

"She is like a director in a play," Cowley's Visual Arts Department Head Mark Flickinger said. "She has been able to maintain her overall vision but still allows individuals to have input."

Irwin has taken her vision of the mural and organized it so that the community can easily volunteer. The pre-drawn mural has been divided into color sections. Each color section has a number that designates the color that will be used. Volunteers only need to match the color and paint the space.

According to Irwin, the mural depicts scenes from Arkansas City's history of food production.

It starts in black and white with two buffalo hunters. Beneath it depicts a farmer plowing the land. Next, in sepia, it shows Arkansas City's saturday market as it occurred in 1902.

Next to the market is an example of the area's cattle and wheat production which flows into a scene from Shank's Market where an old dusty shopkeeper sweeps the front porch.

"I did Shank's market to look like a colorized black and white photo," Irwin said.

The mural uses 24 community members as models and culminates with a full-color view of community members holding a basket of food as an offering. Cowley student Phillip Roth points to a person on the mural and said, "You can relate to it because they look like people you know. This looks just like my grandpa."

In the background the mural highlights the three industries involved in current food production in the area: ADM Milling, Creekstone and Kan-Pak.

Irwin feels that the use of chronology, color and lines will direct visitor's eyes to the full color community focus.

"It will show that Ark City is open and welcoming and centers on family and a sense of community," said Irwin.

All members of the community are encouraged to volunteer in the paint-by-numbers mural. For more information, call to Shannon Gackstatter 442-6877.