Putnam Valley Artist Lends Her Talent to BOCES in Yorktown

Artist Jeannie Egel of Putnam Valley takes a breather while working on the mural. Remembering her own vocational education as being similar to courses being taught at BOCES, a Putnam Valley artist is creating a 28-footlong mural featuring the construction trades offered on the Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES campus in Yorktown Heights.

Jeannie Egel, a neighbor of BOCES’ carpentry teacher Steven Simpson, is providing the work, which is now 50 percent complete, free of charge.

BOCES Superintendent James Langlois said Simpson discovered Egel’s work during a neighborhood chat last summer and he asked her if she would consider creating a mural for the carpentry classroom that was about to be renovated: “Mr. Simpson is a former San Francisco resident and is an admirer of the WPA murals on display at the world renown Coit Tower in the City by the Bay. Out of neighborliness and remembrance of her own vocational education, she agreed.”

Before going on to to Pratt and SUNY Purchase Egel attended Trades and Technical High School in Yonkers.

BOCES Tech Director Joseph Galante commended both Simpson and Egel for their efforts, as well as the students enrolled in the carpentry curriculum: “The young people built the scaffolding and were photographed as models for the images, which were all related to construction career academy trades—welding, carpentry, electronics, masonry, and heating and air conditioning.”

When finished, the nearly 7-foothigh artistic creation that will run the length of a wall above the classroom will consist of a New Deal WPA Public Works Project similar to what outof work artists participated in during the 1930s. Egel said she related to the artists of yesteryear even though “I’m more self-employed than unemployed.”

Egel has already spent more than 100 hours on the BOCES wall.