Children learn at an early age how to mix colors of paint. Red and blue combine to make purple. But adults don’t always see those two colors in alignment during a heated election season.

Central Park artists Carol Fennell and Rebecca Berman created the Purple Poppy Project out of their desire to build a path that “celebrates the unity and hope we experience when we come together” during a divisive time. The project is a new art installation in collaboration with the community, soon to be located outside Stanley Marketplace in northwest Aurora.

“Poppies in themselves, they’re such resilient, tough, pretty little things. They’re the first things that grow on the battlefields. And they are the sign of rising from the ashes. Yes, hope and loveliness and resilience in our backyard,” Berman says.

The project consists of 1,000 clay poppies that were  mounted on bamboo sticks, all painted by people who joined the the public art event on October 6, outside Stanley Marketplace.

The artists will provide all the supplies and will accept donations to cover their costs. Everyone is welcome. This is an event for the community, timed during the month before election day.

“Creating something together promotes communication and conversations about things, so we wanted the community to be part of it,” Fennell says.

Inside Fennell’s northeast Denver home on a September morning, the poppies are coming to life, a sea of clay flowers waiting for a fresh coat of purple paint. They line the dining room table along with rolled out clay and cans of paint.

In the artist’s garage, the last of the 1,000 clay poppies are in the kiln waiting to be fired. Fennell says the number of poppies was chosen because of the tradition of origami cranes and the belief that a “wish comes true” if you create 1,000 of them.

Berman worked on the Cranes for Community Healing Project during the pandemic, a project that inspired people across the country to send paper cranes to Colorado. She’s now happy to work alongside Fennell, whom she calls her art mentor. She has always wanted to do a large art installation, and she knew of her fellow artist’s work from large projects Fennell has done at hospitals across the state. The pair were connected through a social media post and share what they call a deep passion for fostering community through creativity.

“I have a tough time just sitting by. I think it’s easy to fall into the spiral of despair or think there’s nothing we can do to change anything. I have done projects like this before and seen that it doesn’t take a whole lot of work if you have something to do that feels positive. People feel empowered to do other good things too,” says Berman.

Their hope is that people who meet during the event—working side by side on a common goal or uncovering the project’s deeper meaning—will find empowerment through a shared sense of purpose and connection.

“We’ll have all the names of the people who participated, if they want to be on the sign, and they can come and show their family the poppies that they painted. And then they might bump into another person who is showing their family, and then they start talking. We think it has the potential for it to go on past us, and it keeps building,” says Berman.

The women are planning for the installation to be permanent but will wait to see how the poppies hold up during the Colorado winter. The flowers might need to be moved or taken down until spring or placed at a different location at the marketplace.

Eventually, the artists would love to see a traveling purple poppy display along Westerly Creek or the Sand Creek Regional Greenway in northeast Denver. For now, they will focus their passion and poppies on the Stanley Marketplace location by the bridge that crosses the creek behind the building.

Fennell is excited to see the project happening from beginning to end.

“If we can just touch one person and bring change that would be exciting for me, to bring out one person who finds some unity.” Unity and the ability to listen to others. “We have our minds set on what we think is right and don’t pay attention all the time. I’d love to just see people around that table listening to one another,” adds Fennell.

The women say they’re not trying to make a “giant political statement” with the poppy project. They’re trying to do something small at a personal level that they believe can ultimately affect the future, a future where there is always potential for new beginnings and growth.

Front Porch photos by Christie Gosch