Get Down With Da Dirt + Sun & Moon Gates

“Get Down With Da Dirt!” This hip-hop title is a playful reflection of the Miller Education Center high school students who took pride in contributing their time & talent to design these images for the fence panels of the David Hill Community Garden.

Students worked with Suzanne over a period of four months to design the entrance panels to the new garden. The process involved researching & drawing different plants, then simplifying the drawings down to black & white silhouettes.

Their images were combined into ten, separate half-scale panels, sized to meet all the safety standards for fencing, where openings cannot trap a head or pinch a finger. These black & white images were then traced as outlines in a digital CAD program & finally laser cut in steel.

Student, Mary Venegas, found her strength & voice, equal parts defiance & pride, from this project. “People don’t think we can do anything because we are in an alternative school. We’ll show them!” She was so inspired she asked to represent the students at the Dedication Ceremony with a speech she wrote expressing the enthusiasm, gratitude & pride felt by the participants.

Just like the seeds planted in this garden flourish as full grown plants, these students were able to see their ideas grow from little seeds of thoughts & images to a full scale permanent public art installation.

The “Sun” & “Moon” Gates were designed by Suzanne after gardeners requested locking gates for security. The images of common gardening tools- rake, fork, shovel are combined with the necessary light from the sun on the Walnut Street gate. The phases of the moon circling the earth on the 5th Street gate represents the cycles & seasons of gardening.