Creating More Than a Mosaic: How Art is Being Used to Create a Closer Community

The mosaic will be done in six months

MOORHEAD, Minn. — Community members are assembling pieces of glass which will end up as a mosaic inside a Moorhead apartment building.

KVRR’s Danielle Church tells us why the project is about much more than creating a piece of art.

Art has the power to change the way we feel.

But this six feet wide by four feet tall mosaic, which will be complete in six months will also use its power to connect people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Bright Sky is Churches United’s long–term housing for people who have struggled to find a home.

“One of the consistent barriers to stable housing is a sense of community and things that help people feel less isolated and more connected to the community within the building and the broader community,” said Pastor Sue Koesterman, executive director at Churches United.

To help them feel like they’re part of a community, they’ll get to work on the project with every day community members like Julie Brummund.

“It just kind of tickled my creativity side and I thought it would be fun to get involved,” Brummund said.

It especially helped St. Mark’s Lutheran pastor Joe Larson embrace his creativity as the artist behind the mosaic’s symbolic design. He included details like stars to inspire hope and a caterpillar evolving into a monarch butterfly to represent someone who starts out homeless at Churches United.

“And eventually moves into more stability, long–term housing, becoming a new person or in a sense, a new butterfly,” Larson said.

Whether they will realize they are spreading those wings remains a question.

“Whether a piece of artwork will do that for them or not, I don’t know about that. But maybe it’ll make them feel a little happier, make them feel like they aren’t the forgotten people down at the bottom,” Brummund said.

It’s a project that’s also meant to change the way they feel, no matter how small.

This is the second mosaic Larson has created for Churches United.

The first hangs inside the chapel.