While there are still missions to be accomplished and hurdles to leap in the greater Portsmouth area, there is massive progress being made all over by everyday people who are either providing a service, volunteering, serving in office, or donating. We frequently hear that we are in a renaissance, as new developments continue to pop up, new events are added to the calendar, and progress is made. But why? These things don’t manifest themselves. In a weekly column, for one year, I plan on writing about a different member of the community who strives to make this renaissance go. I’ll be highlighting business owners, volunteers, faith-based leaders, professionals, and volunteers.

I am column four into this journey, after highlighting Tracy Shearer, Toni Dengel, and Tonya and Martin Miranda. This is the last time I will mention who I have included to date, because this will be a long road. However, my next chapter is, well, once again, an exciting one for me. I am highlighting an amazing human with a brilliant mind, caring soul, and artistic spirit. Someone who is known by her students and even friends for ending an interaction with the singsong request to “make good choices.” Someone who has left Portsmouth more colorful and dreamlike, wishing for people’s days to be brighter. Of course, we’re covering artist, educator and volunteer April Deacon.

Deacon has been stationed at Portsmouth High School as an art teacher for 17 years. Prior to this, she worked at Waverly High School for four years. Despite her status as a teacher, she has abandoned the walls of her school at every opportunity to include her students in community events and exhibitions, community murals, and more. She has even hired former students to help her create art around town. That’s not to say her work isn’t also within the walls of the school, where Trojans experience an artist who has been installed in galleries all over as part of their daily lives all over the school campus.

Of her gallery experience, which is expansive, some notable exhibitions include Projecting Grace at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the Ohio Biennial Juried Exhibition at the Riffe Gallery, Hear Our Voice: Art of the Women’s March in Asheville, North Carolina, and Come Along with Me at the Riffe Gallery.

I love highlighting this amazing artist because she has made such a difference, installing her work all over town in creative ways. One of the most instrumental impacts she has made is through mural installations, which adorn several buildings as part of 3-D wooden cut-out murals, she has installed many murals within businesses and outside, and she even helped me put murals in at McKinley pool once on a very minimal budget and still employed former students to give them additional opportunities along the way. I also love covering this artist because she is living inspiration to be a better person and to remember kindness when working with all people.

Deacon has been an active member of the community since 2003. She has served as a board member for the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education. She was a founding member of the Portsmouth Unity Project. She is a member of the Trillium Project and the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Art Education Association. She has also served on numerous committees for the Portsmouth City School District including Teacher, Building and District leadership teams, as well as the SEL and PBIS teams.

“I am most proud of the development of my Art and the Community course, which allows students to be active participants in improving their community through the visual arts,” Deacon explained. “Since the inception of the course in 2016, I have earned approximately $180,000 in grant funds to support community-based projects. Students in this class have completed 6 public murals and worked with 10 different visiting artists. They have also completed three phases of a sculpture garden dedicated to Human Rights. As an example of the real-world problem solving that occurs, in phase two, students discovered that food insecurity was a problem in our district. So, for phase three, we expanded the garden but also built a food pantry where art projects were integrated. This pantry serves hundreds of students and their families each month.”

When faced with the question of her favorite thing she’s done for the community, she indicated it was a tough question to answer, saying, “As an educator, impacting the greater community has always been at the forefront of my philosophy. Initially simply by just being a positive role model and mentor in the classroom, but now in more direct ways by empowering students to create public art. I love to see the progression of public art here in Portsmouth from Robert Dafford’s flood wall murals, to student projects, to the amazing sidewalk murals by members of the Trillium project. And, of course, as an artist, I find my personal mural work to be so fulfilling. I absolutely love working on a large scale and I love the impact. Not only can public art transform a place physically, but it can also encourage economic growth through tourism and job development, it can encourage a sense of belonging, and it can even have positive effects upon public safety.”

Deacon explained that she quickly realized that local problems extended beyond her classroom and felt she needed to extend her classroom walls in order to serve her students effectively.

“I love this place,” Deacon said. “I came to know it first through the eyes of my students; children who came from incredibly varied experiences and backgrounds. Most felt there was work to be done here and so we got to work. This is not really my mission. It’s ours. This place belongs to all of us, and it should be a place where we all feel like we belong. A place where we all feel like we can make a positive difference.”

One of the greatest impacts Deason has made has been a result of her efforts in education, where she has formed current community leaders and artists who have moved on to create their own path of giving back.

One of those artists and former students includes Klaire Smith.

“April has inspired countless young people to not only find their inner artist, but to be the best versions of themselves,” Smith said. “Through her work with community-based art many of those students have had an opportunity to beautify their city in turn helping them find pride in our hometown.”