Mosaic mural created by 2nd graders as part of a Kid Serve project at George Moscone Elementary School in San Francisco, March 2005.

Kid Serve is an arts education program guiding students through the design and creation of permanent outdoor mosaic murals in their communities. The projects integrate social justice, creativity and community service and empowers young people to take a leadership role in beautifying and transforming their neighborhoods.

Joseph Norris

• m.a.s.  I love your Kid Serve murals, how do you do it & how did you get into mosaics?
• Josef   I’ve been running Kid Serve Youth Murals for 7 years. We do mural residencies in San Francisco and Oakland public schools. I’ll usually work with a class for a semester (14 weeks) and guide the kids (age 4 - 18) through the process of designing and creating an outdoor mural in their community. We’ve done about 50 of these so far.
  
  I started out as a painter - and then met Isaiah Zagar in Philadelphia in 2002. After working with him for a couple of days I’ve been doing mosaics ever since. Another former Isaiah student Laurel True is based in Oakland and has set up the Institute of Mosaic Art - a great resource for mosaic artists in this part of the country.
  
  
  
  
  lower part of mosaic mural was created with 4 year olds from the Children's Village center.
  
  
• m.a.s.   any advice for artists interested in working on large scale mosaic projects with children?
• Josef    Where do I start?
  The most important part of any kids project is a strong partnership with the adults involved. I always start with a meeting with a school principal or director of a community center. If they are not available to meet with me – I won’t work with them. It is easy to get sucked into babysitting duty – so I’ve developed a good sense of judging teachers and people that will be active participants in working with the kids.
  
  
  
  
  Mosaic butterfly detail on the front of Children's Village pre-school
  
  Be careful of volunteers – they’re great if they show up – but don’t count on them. Don’t agree to a schedule or price based on a promise of volunteer help.
  
  
  Mosaic flower pot detail on the front of Children's Village pre-school
  
  When I’m working on a mural site (as opposed to a classroom setting) I always work with small groups of kids (usually not more than 6 at a time. If the kids are rowdy – I’ll work with smaller groups, sometimes only two at a time – usually not for longer than 30 minutes at a time.
  
  
  
  
  Kidserve mosaic mural located on 10th Street (between Howard and Folsom) Children's Village Pre-school, San Francisco 2006
  
  
• m.a.s.   Why do you it?
• Josef   I love the work. I’ve been doing it for 7 years – have done 50 kids murals and I haven’t gotten bored with it yet. I got into it to make a little extra money on the side – I now run a non-profit and do it full time. I find that as a working artist – working with kids forces me to use certain artistic muscles that I would never have to use on my own projects.
  
  
  
  
  6th graders from Visitacion Valley Middle School "grouting" their mosaic mural
  
  
• m.a.s.   your most rewarding experience working with  children?
• Josef   I’ve had many – My best experiences are when I get to actually do art with younger artists. I worked on a project (20’ high x 45’ wide mosaic mural) with high school students last year – working with high school students on a busy street on scaffolding has a lot of risk factors. But the teachers were great – we had a lot of adult volunteers and the kids (14 year olds) – were great.
  
  
  Mosaic mural created by 4th & 5th graders,19th Avenue & Irving Street, San Francisco
  
  I had another great experience with 4th & 5th graders last year – also with a lot of safety concerns – it was on a very busy street in San Francisco’s Sunset district. We got a lot of parents to come out and help out. It was a lot of fun meeting the parents – and it helped make the project much more of a community event.
  
  
  'Hope' Mosaic mural created by highschool students.
  
  
• m.a.s.   your worst or most frustrating experience?
  
• Josef   At least half of my projects are at very poor and under served schools. You can find yourself working with very difficult kids (and on a couple of occasions teachers) – that don’t know how to function well on a mural site. As I mentioned before – I’ve learned to look for very strong partnerships – and I can usually (not always) spot a difficult situation in advance.
  
  
  'Hope' Kid Serve mosaic mural facing Geary Blvd between Scott & Steiner, San Francisco. 
  
  
• m.a.s.   worst mosaic disaster?
• Josef   Haven’t had any. A good rule of thumb for any muralist – is always test out your materials before taking them out to a mural site. Mural sites are not the place for wild experimentation. Especially with kids.
  
  All of our murals are outside – and some are in rough neighborhoods. Amazingly – after 50 kids murals – we have only had 3 of them vandalized – we removed the spray paint immediately – and the problems have not come back. I’ve done projects in North Philadelphia, and San Francisco – and most recently in some rough spots in East Oakland.
  
  Last year – we had a children’s mosaic mural destroyed by people in the neighborhood using sledgehammers to knock it off the wall. That was very discouraging – but also reinforced my desire to work with kids to try to take back and transform their neighborhoods.
  
  
  2nd grader using thinset & tiles to create mosaic George Moscone Elementary School
  
  
• m.a.s.   tips on materials to use for exterior applications?
• Josef   I use thinset mortar for outdoor mosaics. It sells for $6.00 for a 50lb bag and sets up in about 4 hours. If it starts to rain – the tiles are locked in. It is also easy to clean up – which is important when working with kids.  I always use sanded grout for my murals – and I like to add a little extra sand – it makes the clean up better.
  
  
• m.a.s.   best mosaic tip?
• Josef   As I mentioned before – test out your materials before you go on the mural site.
  
  
  'Suncatchers' kidserve mosaic mural created with 7th graders, James Denman Middle School San Francisco 2002
  
  
• m.a.s.   most important thing you learned from Isaiah  Zagar?
• Josef   I learned a ton of things from Isaiah. He’s always experimenting and trying new things. He uses a lot of different materials from salvage yards – a lot of floor tiles mixed in with kitchen tiles, mixed in with painted glass etc…
  
  Large-scale murals are outside and in public places where people walk around – Isaiah’s murals actually glisten – because you have all these different materials with different sheens glistening and refracting light differently. Seen up close his murals really appear magical.
  
  
• m.a.s.   any cool Isaiah Zagar moments you can share?
• Josef   I was working on one of his murals and deliberating on which tile should go where – he told me to pick up the pace...
  
  
  
  
  Isaiah Zager
  “Don’t think about it too much – just lay the tile. Don’t let your brain get in the way of your art…”
  
  Very good advice – With my own projects – I tend to plan out the basic color and contrast before hand – and tend to work very quickly when I’m on the site.
  
  
  mosaic fish created by 3rd graders New Highland Elementary School East Oakland 2006
  
  
• m.a.s.   best thing a child said to you while creating a  mosaic?  
• Josef   My minds a blank on that one – but I see a lot of happy accidents working with kids on murals. We do Saturday mural days on our projects and we always have one or two kids - usually the pathologically shy kids in the back of the class who has said nothing all semester – they’ll come out and work all day on the mural site. After 7 years I’ve started to meet a lot of kids years later. The 2nd graders I worked with in 2000 are in middle school now. The 5th graders are almost out of high school – and all of their murals are still up in their communities.
  
  
  'living library' kid serve mosaic mural created by 7th graders from James Denman Middle School in San Francisco 2004
  
  
• m.a.s.   besides Isaiah, which other artists inspire you?
• Josef   Faith Ringgold and her story quilts, Ferdinand Cheval, Simon Rodia, Henri Rousseau, Ivan Generalic – a great Yugoslavian primitive artist…Maya Lin– who designed the Vietnam War Memorial… among many others…
  
  
• m.a.s.   how can other mosaic artists get involved?
• Josef   People that live in the Bay Area can email me at Josef@kidserve.com with their contact information & I’ll get in touch with them.
  
  
  mosaic dog detail from "Suncatchers" - a mosaic mural created with 7th graders
  
  
• m.a.s.   It's evident that the Kid Serve program has already had an incredibly positive (if not magical) effect on the children involved as well as their neighborhoods!  Thank you for sharing your experience Josef, if only every community could have such a wonderful program...