BMS artwork digitized, will be displayed in new building

Next year, the walls of the existing Berg Middle School will come tumbling down as the building is demolished to make way for the new Berg, which is under construction behind the current facility.

In operation for more than 50 years, generations of students have left their mark on the building, creating artwork that has covered the walls of the middle school campus. Thanks to a joint effort between the school district and photographer Bob Hawkins, those memories will live on long after the building has been demolished.

Last summer, Newton Community School District Superintendent Bob Callaghan reached out to Hawkins, a well-known photographer in Newton. Callaghan wanted to know if Hawkins would be able to photograph the art on the walls of the middle school as administrators in the district had determined that very little of the artwork would be salvageable. Much of the artwork on the walls at Berg was created on top of the physical structure of the building — students painted the concrete block walls and their lockers as they left their indelible mark on the building.

“We can’t just cut the wall out,” Callaghan said. “For the past 50 some years since the early 60s, classes have created artwork throughout the building and actually made it part of the building, we wanted to preserve that through the digitization process.”

As Callaghan and Hawkins walked the building last summer to look over the artworks, Hawkins realized how unique many of the pieces are. Looking at the murals and paintings that adorn the walls of the school, Hawkins saw the names of current and former clients, as well as a host of Newton’s movers and shakers.

“I saw names of people I recognized,” Hawkins said. “Some of those people have gone on to be pillars of the community. It’s fascinating to realize how creative young people can be.”

Photographing the work in the narrow hallways required solving a number of technical challenges. With little space to work with, Hawkins was reluctant to use wide angle lenses, he didn’t want the images to become distorted. Instead, he shot hundreds of individual images that he digitally stitched together to create a finished product. Using a polarizing filter to reduce glare, the photographer worked for 10 hours to photograph more than 20 different murals scattered throughout the building. Digital technology allowed Hawkins to create huge images with dazzling details.

“I think it would have been impossible to do it working on film,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins delivered the finished images to the school earlier this year. Callaghan said the district is planning on printing each of the images on vinyl and then hanging them in the two-story stairwell of the new Berg. The images will be surrounded by the stairwell windows, meaning they’ll likely be visible from the street.

“People will be able to see the artwork by looking through the glass windows,” Callaghan said.

The district will retain ownership of the images, but Hawkins said he’s hoping they’ll consider producing a book of the images, or at least postcards that feature the work. As he worked on the project, he was struck by the creativity students displayed as they left their mark on the walls of the middle school.

“I was really just impressed with all the ideas they came up with,” Hawkins said. “There’s a lot of little stories in there, I think people will find it fascinating to find it hanging in the new school.”

Contact David Dolmage at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or ddolmage@newtondailynews.com