As students delve into second semester, they are participating in many clubs and after school activities including Lewis-Palmer’s Art Club. This year the club has big plans; so far, they have done everything from carving pumpkins to making canvases. They plan to make tie dye shirts in their next meeting. However, the group’s biggest project this semester is a mural they are painting in the town of Monument. Katherine Swaim, 12, is the current Art Club president and is helping with this process.

“The Art Club is about expressing yourself artistically. We’re kind of a group where you can be who you want to be. It’s not really a judgmental environment and we’re all like a close knit family, that’s why working on this mural has been so much fun,” Swaim said.

Swaim and the other members of art club have been working on the mural at Monument Lake for about four months now. Stephanie Crow, the Art Club sponsor, was approached by some board members from the Town of Monument for this project.

“They wanted students to feel really proud and wanted them to come back in ten years to see and remember their work and how passionate they were about it. They also felt as if the community needed some more beautiful art, so they thought students would go crazy over this,” Crow said.

Crow and Swaim both believe that this mural experience will also help to get more of Lewis-Palmer’s art out into the community. This work of art is a form of publicity not only for Lewis-Palmer, but also for the Art Club.

“All the members get their own section of the wall to paint what they want. Lauren Sharp painted a space dinosaur, Hannah Held painted a really beautiful portrait of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and I’ve painted a couple things as well. But there are a lot of things that are going up, it’s worth checking out. I think this is really going to help gain recognition from the community for the club,” Swaim said.

The president’s goal for the rest of the semester is to have the art club’s work noticed outside of the school and to expand in the community as well as expand the group.

“The mural process would probably be a lot faster if we had more people. We’re such a small group and I know there are so many people out there who love art but choose not to join. Not many people realize it’s a chance to meet people with the same interests as you. We really are like a family and projects like this bring us together even more,” Swaim said.

Swaim emphasizes how this mural experience has opened her mind to new aspects of art and is excited to see what kind of people and what kind of attention the colorful mural will attract to Art Club.