As part of the library’s 15th anniversary celebration Thursday, students who participated in the project were invited back to visit and locate their handprint in the artwork.
Hogan’s mother sent her a photo of a note from her then fourth-grade teacher at Fairfield East Elementary that identified the location of her dark blue handprint.
“It’s been a while,” she said. “It’s amazing that I could see something I did from the fourth grade. It brings back memories.”
Hogan, a 2009 graduate of Fairfield High School, said she liked how the project brought the school district together.
“It was an exciting project,” said Howard Dirksen, a former Fairfield City Council member who co-chaired the endeavor. “At the time, the library was being built and they only had room for two murals.”
Dirksen said he often sees people looking at the murals when he comes to the library in the city’s Village Green area.
While the Fairfield fourth-graders from East, Central, North, West and South elementary schools and from Cincinnati Christian, LaValle and Sacred Heart Catholic schools provided the handprints, Fairfield High School art students glazed the tiles before their installation.
“I’m amazed how well they’ve held up. It’s really beautiful,” art teacher Annie King said.
Megan Rusk said she “remembers bits and pieces of the project.” She was one of the fourth-graders involved and stopped by the library with her mother, Susie, to see the murals.
“I thought it was pretty cool that it turned into a mural with hands and everything,” Rusk said. “It’s incredible and super-creative.”
A photo album kept at the library includes a key to the handprints of each student.
Lauren Guthrie, who was a fourth-grader at Cincinnati Christian but graduated from Fairfield High School, said she’s seen the mural a lot over the years.
“I knew one of them was mine,” she said. “It’s cool to know which one was mine.”
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