The Organic Growth of the Living Tree Mural Project

Over the course of the summer, fall, and winter of 2005 - 2006, St. John's collaborated with artists on the faculty of the South City Open Studio and Art Gallery (SCOSAG) and 150 amateur artists of all ages and abilities to create a community mural project, called the Living Tree Mural Project. The process has been organic and grassroots. The artistic coordinators - Lyndsey Scott and Jason Wallace Treifenbach - led members of the St. John' community and the wider Tower Grove area community through a visioning and brainstorming process in the summer of 2005. In the fall and winter of 2005, Lyndsey and Jason provided artists of all ages and abilities with opportunities for artistic expression - including drawing with chalk on sidewalks; forming, painting, and glazing clay leaves; shellacking Mississippi river drift wood and creative writing. Patrick Ritchey came on board in the winter to lead the construction of a tree trunk out of recycled lumber, wire mesh, drift wood, and plaster.

The intent of the Living Tree Mural Project is to create an "outward and visible sign" of St. John's mission to be a welcoming community center for all people in our worshiping parish community and all people in our geographic parish - the Tower Grove area. The Living Tree reflects the importance of natural beauty in an urban environment, as well as the symbolic and religious importance of trees to people from many cultures and religions throughout the ages. Ultimately, the Living Tree will be the centerpiece for a renovated, glass-walled entryway into the Parish Hall - the main space used by member of both the worshipping community and the wider community - a transparent transition space between the outdoor and the indoor, the parish congregation and the wider geographic parish, God's creation and human creation.