Father-daughter team gets to the HeART of 1960s Goodyear

By Kelly O’Sullivan
Twitter: @AzNewsmedia

Adam and Addison Turner, a father-daughter team painting the HeART of Goodyear’s 1960s mural at Goodyear Community Park were drawn to the decade for several reasons.

“I was born in the 60s,” Mr. Turner said as he and 18-year-old Addison worked on their 5- by 6-foot fiberglass heart Nov. 21. “Addie is a peacemaker. She’s all about peace. She was drawn to Martin Luther King Jr.”

Both also were drawn to the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron, which held winter training at Naval Air Station, Litchfield Park (now Phoenix Goodyear Airport), from 1963 to 1966.

“I want it to be an uplifting mural,” Ms. Turner said. “That’s why we focused on so many positives” like MLK, racing, the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 and other aspects of life in Goodyear back then.

It also was important to the Turners to pay homage to those who died during the Vietnam War, so they incorporated the battlefield cross depicting the helmet, rifle and boots erected by service members to honor their fallen buddies.

The mural is still a work in progress; Mr. Turner said the pair should be finished by mid-December.

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Adam Turner, creative director and illustrator at Adam Turner Visuals, and his daughter, a 2020 Trivium Prep graduate now majoring in computer science at Northern Arizona University share the easy rapport of artists who are comfortable working together to blend their diverse styles.

The pair worked quietly and steadily Nov. 21, conferring with one another over placement of lines as families played in the park, occasionally stopping to check out what was happening.

“Were you here all night? I saw you here last night,” a woman said, garnering a chuckle from the Turners, who stopped what they were doing briefly to explain the HeArt of Goodyear project when a little boy asked what they were doing.

Mr. Turner credits his daughter for the mural’s original concept, noting they went back and forth on various elements of the design before finalizing the version now taking shape on the heart.

“She’s insanely creative,” he said. “I really like what we’ve ended up with.”

When they’re not working or studying, the Turners like to return to wife and mom Laura Turner’s home state of Minnesota to compete separately in snow-sculpting competitions.

“She started at 12. She’s never lost,” Mr. Turner said of Addison, conveniently forgetting to say that he’s a force in the snow-sculpting world who has competed in the International Snow Sculpting Competition in Breckenridge, Colorado, and others, including the U.S. National Snow Sculpting Competition in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Both Turners have plans to compete again as soon as they can, perhaps even on the same team one day.

While Mr. Turner is mulling an invitation to step outside his usual sculpting box to participate in the Texas SandFest sand sculpture competition in Corpus Christi, Texas, in April 2021, Ms. Turner would like to put together a snow-sculpting team at NAU when the COVID-19 pandemic winds down.

Until then, their immediate priority will be to complete their 1960s heart, which they hope will instill as sense of peace and unity in those who view their work.

“Right now, we just need to be united as a nation,” Mr. Turner said as Ms. Turner nodded.

Kelly O’Sullivan can be reached at kosullivan@newszap.com or 760-963-1697.