These are what images I still have of the “Three Warriors” mural at Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site, a Mississippian prehistoric and also historic archaeological site near St. Louis in the Collinsville, Illinois area. It was also once the site of an historic Indian village of a Native Americans, and then the site of a Trappist Monk monestary.

We do not know by what name it was known by its original inhabitants, and neither did its later occupants, but we know something about how the Mississippians lived from the artifacts and earthworks they left behind, their astronomical calendars, and we know the floor plans of their houses. We do not yet know for sure why the site was abandoned, but its decline was prior to Columbus and apparently gradual, and there were probably several factors involved.

The mural served double duty during bad weather as an indoor “nature walk” there, at least by Mike Nance, a long-time state employee who knew the site like the back of his hand and doubled as the site’s nature guide. It was suitable because of the several identifiable plant and animal species included in the artwork.

This mural was painted on-site around the time the new museum was built, but typically, most of my murals are painted on canvas and then applied to the wall like other high quality heavy fabric wall coverings, or stretched on a composite aluminum- wood stretcher, or on rigid panels attached to the wall.

Also included here is a photo of the preliminary sketch. Unfortunately, I have no good photos of this. It was one of my first murals- I believe the third- and as such, part of a learning process that began when a junior high art teacher asked for and received permission to have a few of her art students decoratively paint a strip of wall high on the school’s cafeteria wall.

We were given a little bit of leeway to come up with our own additions to the wall, so I chose the space shuttle, the Blue Angels, and the St. Louis Riverfront, as I recall. It may have been the Air Force Thunderbirds which often performed at the air show at Scott Field, the nearby Air Force Base, but since I was fond of the F-18 Hornet, I think it was probably the Navy’s Blue Angels.

More important than our contributions to the cafeteria decor was the beneficial impact of having adults trust us with a job- on a very visible wall, no less, and on public property. And for the first time, a teacher had us use professional acrylic paints. Now, this is a big thing : up to that time the school district’s idea of art was to teach its students to create a predefined shape on construction paper using pasta or toothpicks, and the budget was tight because the district put every available penny into sports. Needless to say, this did not invite creativity or help us learn about art; so I was always the rogue that would do a horse instead of a house, anything at all to escape the mold.

In this case a teacher actually went the extra mile and used her own art supplies to give a few of us the added experience. I recognized immediately that these were not pasta and toothpicks and Elmer’s glue, nor house paints or cheap craft paint, but real and very expensive professional grade paints, and real, well-made professional brushes, and that it was an honor to be trusted with them.

The little project helped build my confidence in painting as a medium and in doing large scale art- yet it did not turn me into a graffiti vandal, lurking about marking other people’s property like a tom cat.

It is OK to let kids get into paint, and if you can teach ethics along with art you can help channel their creative energy into something positive for your community, rather than see it wasted on graffiti that will only bring down or deface the places where we live.

Susan Walton, S. A. Walton Studio, nature and mural artist.

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