By Jacquelyn Guillen

  Students in both Ms. Chisholm and Ms. Wain’s painting classes spent a class period just looking at an empty wall, brainstorming possible ideas they could use to create a mural.

  The painting classes are working on three different murals until possibly the end of the school year. The murals are to be placed on the wall between the first and second floor, between the second and third floor, and between the third and fourth floors of stairwell O.

  “There’s no art on the walls” Ms. Chisholm said. “We just see murals on the first floor.”

  Ms. Chisholm and Ms. Wain agreed to work together to try to get a grant in order to fund their project. They needed the grant to fund all the paint that is needed for the murals. Once they received that grant, they got their students involved to help come up with possible ideas for what students would like to see when they walk up the staircase.

  Josef Jozefowicz, Div. 663, and Paula Mendez, Div. 667, are two students working on the mural in Ms. Chisholm’s Honors Painting class. At first, they individually drew their own sketches for the murals. The students redid their sketches about four to five different times. Once they had their sketches, both Jozefowicz and Mendez combined their ideas.

  “It feels awesome. It’s like we’re leaving behind a legacy,” Jozefowicz said.

  Mendez said there was a lot of trial and error put into creating their sketch. Mendez had the music sense and head bases in her sketch, while Jozefowicz had the sculptures and Chicago artists in his sketch. At first they did not think about putting the CTA train line as a backdrop. They tried incorporating Lake Michigan and even the different ethnic neighborhoods that are represented in Chicago, before they put the train line in their sketch.

  While Ms. Chisholm’s students are working on a mural that has more to do with Chicago artists and music, Ms. Wain said her students are working on a pop style mural. It is based on Lane students, school spirit, athletics, fine arts, and many other things that Lane has to offer.

  Since the sketches have been approved, Ms. Chisholm and Ms. Wain are starting the murals. They plan on projecting the sketches onto a white wooden board to make it as accurate to the sketch as possible, and then the painting will follow short after. Ms. Chisholm said she hopes the murals will be finished by graduation, so that some of the seniors in their classes get to see the murals before they leave Lane.