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CCC artist completes fifth Sprague mural reconstruction 

Coffeyville Community College (CCC) Art faculty member, Michael DeRosa, hung his fifth Sprague Mural Reconstruction on October 6.  The latest mural celebrates Coffeyville aviation history and may be viewed on the west side of the insurance building on the corner of Maple and 9th street in downtown Coffeyville.  Of the five murals DeRosa has re-painted, this one was the most challenging. 

“It took me eight months and 603 hours, not including any of the prep work, to complete the mural,” he said.   

The Aviation Mural, originally on the side of the former IGA store on eighth street, was the first mural DeRosa transferred to sign board in order to hang it in a different location.  There are 18 panels that make up the mural, each of which was primed and painted with base coats prior to the actual artwork.  DeRosa built a wall with the primed boards outside of the Borum Warehouse.  This allowed enough distance to project a slide of the original Aviation Mural and the gave DeRosa the chance to do a rough line drawing of the existing mural onto the boards.  He then tore down the wall, rebuilt it on the inside of the warehouse and recreated the mural.   

“The main reason I think this mural posed the most challenge was that all the other murals were repainted on the same surface and this one is on a totally different surface,” said DeRosa.  “On the other murals I have redone, I could always leave ‘landmarks’ so I knew where certain things went or how big they are.  In this mural there were none.  The original mural is in poor shape and is lacking much information which left me to refer to a small photograph of the original mural to see the information needed to repaint the mural.  The mural is 12 feet by 48 feet and it is extremely difficult to get that kind of information from a three-by-five inch photo.”

 Aviation History Mural

DeRosa Working on Mural

CCC Art Faculty member, Michael DeRosa, puts the finishing touches on the Don Sprague Aviation History Mural.  This is DeRosa’s fifth Sprague mural restoration.

DeRosa created a magnification system to help him make the mural as close as possible to an exact replica of the original.  He also found it challenging to paint inside a warehouse in an area where he could not get far enough back to see the mural as a whole as he was painting it. 

“It involved a lot of intuition and guesswork during the reconstruction process to make sure everything would read correctly once it was hung at the installation site,” he said. 

DeRosa has been asked to consider restoring more of the murals.  The next mural will probably be Interurban. 

“I do the murals for lots of different reasons.  The most important is that I think they make this community a more pleasant place to live, in fact when I came to Coffeyville to interview for my current position at CCC, it was the murals that made me think first that Coffeyville was a warm and friendly environment,” said DeRosa.  “For me, the murals are very important on a personal level for representing this community.  I believe in them and this enables me to give back to the community.  The first one was a challenge to see if I could do it and now it has become a part of me.” 

DeRosa’s interest in art began at a young age. 

“I always enjoyed making images and I had a lot of support from my parents,” he said.  “As I became a young adult, I knew that I wanted to be employed in some occupation that involved art.” 

DeRosa graduated from Oklahoma State University with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design.  He completed an internship at Graphic Edge and another one at University Limited Art Edition. 

“This (Universal Limited Art Edition) was the most influential part of my education,” said DeRosa.  “I worked with leading artists of the world including Jasper Johns, Susan Rothenberg and Jim Dine.” 

DeRosa continued his education at Illinois State University where he graduated with a master’s degree in fine art.  At ISU he won the Marshal Dulaney Picture Award.  He studied color and space as well as art history at ISU. 

“The advice I have for young aspiring artists is to simply draw . . . draw from life, study light and the way it reflects off of objects and how it changes the way we see things.  Be yourself, ask questions and consider the answers,” said DeRosa.  “Remember, you are only an artist if you are making art.” 

For more information about the CCC Art Program call 620-252-7020.