HAVERHILL — As it turns out, Crystal Willette should have held out for a few more bucks.
Crystal, 12, painted a portrait of School Superintendent Raleigh Buchanan and offered to sell it to him. When she asked for $20, he reached into his pocket and happily paid.
"I'm a professional now!" Crystal exclaimed after Buchanan gave her $20 for the portrait. "I guess I should have asked for $50."
Buchanan's image now hangs outside his office in City Hall.
Other works painted by Crystal and middle-school students across the city, with the help of local professional artists, will be shown at the Kidsfest celebration Sunday. Some of them will be left on display on the exterior of the new George's Restaurant on Washington Street. All the artwork will be on display at Antiques World on Washington Street during the festival.
Over the last two months, students in the Discovery Clubs at Nettle, Whittier and Consentino middle schools worked with their art teachers and local artists to create paintings of mostly Haverhill scenes, as well as three large murals reflecting the heritage and culture of the Washington Street Historic District. Haverhill was once an international shoe manufacturing giant. The city is using that heritage to promote tourism.
Students created their own paintings with help from Nettle art teacher Beverly Rigoli, Consentino art teacher Liz Kilday and Whittier art teacher Bonnie Porter. Artist Liz Persing of Bradford worked with Consentino and Whittier students to create murals representing Haverhill's former hat and shoe industries.
"Apparently, Haverhill was big in hats," said Tina Fuller, director of the Discovery Club. "The Amesbury Hat Factory ran out of room and expanded by opening a factory here."
Crystal, a seventh-grader at Nettle Middle School, created Buchanan's image as part of Team Haverhill's ongoing mural project. Team Haverhill is an organization of residents and businesspeople working on tourism and other projects to benefit the city.
Buchanan's portrait was on display at Nettle earlier this month, along with more than 30 other paintings created by students as part of the project.
Buchanan told Crystal that throughout his career in education, which has spanned decades, no student had ever painted a portrait of him.
In the spirit of this project, which mixes art and history, West Newbury artist Alan Pearsall based the mural he created, with the help of Nettle students, on a boxing club in Haverhill during the early 1800s. In his mural, two boxers are shown slugging it out in a ring.
The student artwork and mural project was funded by a $3,252 grant from the Haverhill Cultural Council that Fuller applied for through the Haverhill Foundation for Excellence in Education. The grant paid for a carpenter to make the plywood shapes that the murals were painted on. It also paid the professional artists for their time.
ÔÇæÔÇæÔÇæ
Join the discussion. To comment on stories and see what others are saying, log on to eagletribune.com.
Details in terror plot revealed
Red Sox players, fans react to the epic collapse
Buy Shonda Schilling's clothes for a good cause
Sox fans feeling let down again
