Artist and educator Peter Geisser and his longtime collaborator Mika Seeger (not shown) have been working with young offenders to create a ceramic-relief mural inside the new Youth Detention Facility in Cranston. Above, Geisser, left, and assistant Dan Ryan adhere ceramic pieces to the wall. The mural continues along a hall wall and is about 80 feet long.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

CRANSTON, R.I. — Over the years, Peter Geisser’s work as a freelance mural maker and designer has taken him to some pretty unusual places. In 2008, for example, Geisser and his longtime collaborator, Mika Seeger, put the finishing touches on “The Waves of Narragansett,” a 92-foot-long ceramic mural that depicts the history of South County, from the prehistoric era to the present day.

The mural, commissioned by a subsidiary of construction giant Gilbane Inc., is on Beach Street, across from the Narragansett seawall.

A year later, Geisser and Seeger were at it again — this time overseeing the creation of a community mural for a new playground in Providence’s India Point Park.

But the location of Geisser’s (and Seeger’s) latest mural project may be the strangest yet. Titled “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” and loosely based on a famous painting by Paul Gauguin, the mural, which was partially funded under the state’s “One Percent for Art” program, occupies an 80-foot-long wall at the new Youth Detention Facility in Cranston.

“I like to think of it as the first mural I’ve done that I don’t want people to see,” Geisser quipped during a recent visit. “Generally speaking, if you ever get to spend more than few minutes looking at this mural, you either work here or you’ve done something you shouldn’t have.”

Peter Geisser works with a group of students at the Training School in April, as they mold clay for the ceramic tiles. A detail from the finished mural is at right.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

Kidding aside, Geisser is clearly proud of the mural, which was developed in collaboration with students and teachers from the Rhode Island Training School. In fact, he and Seeger approached the project as a learning experience, both for themselves and the students.

“This is probably going to sound pretty corny, but it really was a transforming experience for both of us,” he said. “Let’s face it, the kids who come here don’t come because they’re interested in honing their artistic skills. But guess what? Now that we’re almost done, I can honestly say that I think everyone who participated got something out of it. I certainly did. And I think the kids did, too.”

If Geisser’s name rings a bell, it’s probably because this 64-year-old artist-educator has become one of the most prolific — and public — artists in the Ocean State.

A trained glassmaker, Geisser has created stained-glass windows and murals for a number of high-profile clients, including Hasbro Children’s Hospital and the cancer-treatment center at Rhode Island Hospital. He was also one of the organizers behind the “Circle of Clay,” a three-year tile-making project involved hundreds of Rhode Island schoolchildren. The tiles, which eventually numbered more than 10,000, were used to create decorative murals for Hasbro Children’s Hospital.

In recent years, Geisser has frequently teamed up with Seeger, a Tiverton sculptor and ceramic artist who also happens to be the daughter of folk-music legend Pete Seeger. Together, the two artists have collaborated on a number of public art projects, including “Past Points,” a history-themed mural in India Point Park, and a mural for the new RIPTA transportation center in Kennedy Plaza. (Seeger has been out of the country for the past few weeks and could not be interviewed for this story.)

Geisser’s career as an educator is equally distinguished. A longtime teacher at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, he’s widely credited with making the school’s art-education program a national model — not just for hearing-impaired students but for students of any kind.

He’s also taught at the Museum of Fine Arts, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2008 he was honored with a Pell Award.

Despite his experience, however, Geisser readily admits that the detention-center mural presented some unique challenges. For starters, there was the problem of where to put it.

“We looked at a bunch of different places,” Geisser said. “Obviously, when you’re dealing with a building that’s designed to be as secure as possible, there aren’t a lot of options.”

ULTIMATELY, GEISSER and Seeger, in consultation with center officials, found a spot: a long corridor connecting the main entrance to the center’s cafeteria, dormitories and administrative offices. Though the area, which is protected by a gauntlet of metal-detectors and high-security doors, is mostly off-limits to the general public, Geisser said the advantages far outweighed the drawbacks.

“From a purely practical standpoint it’s a beautiful space,” he said. “You have high ceilings, great light and a long, mostly uninterrupted wall to work on. It’s perfect.”

Geisser also noted that even with the security precautions, the corridor is one of the busiest areas of the facility. “Basically, it’s the spine of the building,” he said. “For example, if you’re going from the lobby to one of the offices, you go through the corridor. If you’re going from the dormitory to the cafeteria, you go through the corridor. It’s really the social center of the whole complex.”

Another challenge was how to design a mural that would speak to the center’s residents: juvenile offenders who are either serving sentences or awaiting trial in Family Court.

“That was the big question,” Geisser said. “How do you reach kids that may have very limited reading and writing skills, let alone exposure to things like art and design?”

Geisser said he found part of the answer in an icon of modern art — Gauguin’s 1897 masterpiece, “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” Yet rather than simply copying the painting, Geisser and Seeger decided to incorporate some elements while adding others.

“Ultimately, it’s less about what’s in the painting than it is about the questions Gauguin is posing,” Geisser said. “I mean, think about it. What questions could be more relevant for a kid who’s been sent here than the ones that Gauguin is asking: Where do we come from, meaning what’s our history, what’s our heritage? Who are we and who do we want to be? And where are we going?”

In keeping with their collaborative approach, Geisser and Seeger also decided to invite students and teachers from the detention center to help them complete the mural. As a practical matter, Seeger agreed to sculpt most of the main figurative elements, including several of the female figures that appear in the Gauguin painting. But by far the largest number of pieces were created by the students.

“They really did everything we asked them to do,” Geisser said.

Geisser said that many of the thousands of tile-like pieces that make up the mural have a special meaning for the people who made them. As you walk down the corridor, for example, one of the first things you notice are the dozens of small brick-shaped tiles that run along the bottom of the mural. A closer look reveals that each tile is inscribed with one of the questions posed in the mural’s title, rendered in one of more than 20 languages, ranging from English and Spanish to Thai and Arabic.

“We’ve had kids walk by this mural dozens of times and then, suddenly, say ‘Hey, that’s my language!’ ” Geisser said. “It’s a way to draw them deeper into the mural.”

Not surprisingly, many of the images are designed to send a positive message. A large clay relief at one of the mural, for example, depicts a young man dressed in a cap and gown and holding a diploma. But there are also grittier images — a skull, for example, and tiles showing people behind bars.

“One of the things we learned from working with these kids is that you can’t fool them,” Geisser said. “They know where they are. They know life can be tough. I mean, the things some of these kids have seen — sometimes it just makes you want to cry. But you can’t fool them.”

Though work on the mural is almost finished, Geisser said that fundraising for the $45,000 project would continue for several more months.

“Basically, the One Percent for Art money covered about half of our expenses,” he said. “We’re trying to make the rest up through private donations, and so far we’re doing pretty well. But we could still use some help.” (To contribute, contact Very Special Arts Rhode Island by phone at (401) 725-0247 or e-mail at programs@vsartsri.org.)

bvansicl@projo.com