By George Slaughter
When you talk with staff at the Montessori Moments School, you can sense the pride and excitement as the school prepares for its 25th anniversary in January.
“I feel very blessed having awesome teachers and parents at this school,” Zara Araboff, the school’s principal and founder, said. “We’re starting to get the children of our children. It’s an awesome thing to see.”
The school is located at 19115 Spanish Needle Drive, which is off Greenhouse Road near Saums Road. Besides the upcoming anniversary, it has something else to celebrate—namely, a mural painted on the west side of the building, easily seen from the street.
Zahra Ali, the mother of one of the students, is an artist and created the mural.
The mural at Montessori Moments School, 19115 Spanish Needle Drive (George Slaughter photo)
As for what kind of mural Ali would actually create, Araboff said she and some of her teacher colleagues looked at samples on Ali’s web site.
“Her collection of artwork is beautiful,” Araboff said. “We selected a few of them that were attractive to us, and left it to her to decide which piece to blow up as a mural.”
Ali described the painting selected as one of a teacher with two kids on a seesaw. The painting was auctioned off in Dallas a couple of years ago, she said, and she doesn’t know who owns it today. But she has an image of that work, and with the mural she could re-create the painting and see it every day.
Ali said she finished the mural in a week and a half. She said she tried to work when temperatures were cooler and the students weren’t around so she could better focus.
“I go with what the feel gives me,” Ali said.
Araboff said the progression of the work being done was a nice thing to see.
“She had to work after school hours and on weekends,” Araboff said. “That was an added burden to her timeline.”
The mural is not the only artwork Ali has prepared for Montessori Moments. On the front of the school, Ali has painted the Western Hemisphere on one pillar and the Eastern Hemisphere on the other.
Ali has one child enrolled in the school’s elementary school program. Another child is starting school at Montessori Moments next month.
“I wanted to make the school stand out,” Ali said. “The kids like it. It’s a great spot for a mural to be in.”
Araboff said it was very gracious of Ali to agree to create the mural.
“I happened to see this one work she did, of a mother and her child, and thought how appropriate that would be for a school environment,” Araboff said. “She was gracious enough to agree to do the mural for us.”