Wanting to fill the white space in front of his classroom, science teacher Craig Wideman had some of his students paint a mural for him. 

“We’ve had tons of really talented artists. I see all the awards they win in the emails that are sent out, so I asked some of my students and reached out to [art teacher Lauren Sakowski] to see if we could maybe paint something that was science-related in the science hallway,” Wideman said. 

The murals in the school are traditionally painted by AP Art and Design underclassmen after the AP test. Because of this, Sakowski worked with junior Anna Matheus and sophomore Michelle Chen to complete the project. 

“Every year after the AP Test, we decide what are we going to do with the rest of our time. This year, we chose to do this project,” Sakowski said. 

Wideman had asked Sakowski about getting artwork in front of his classroom at the beginning of the year and she had mentioned the possibility of a mural. 

“When the time came, Michelle and Anna were both really interested,” Sakowski said.

The design for the mural came from Chen’s sister, who had used something similar for her project in college. 

“[The design] was like a sticker and originally was Elmo from the Burning Elmo meme. She traced [a lab coat] over Elmo, but we decided to change it after that because of copyright issues, and we added the cloud instead of the fire. [Wideman] loved it when I showed it to him, so we just went with it,” Chen said. 

Even though this is Chen and Matheus’s first time painting a mural, they said the project was relatively easy with Sakowski’s experience. 

“We haven’t done anything like this before, but I think it’s going well. Sometimes having fewer people work on it makes it easier,” Chen said.

In total, the mural took them around eight hours to complete.

This is one of the first murals painted by the AP Art and Design underclassmen since the pandemic.

“The canvas that hangs to the right of the theater doors was technically started before the pandemic but finished after due to time constraints. We will continue to do murals in the future whenever there is time and interest,” Sakowski said. 

Out of all murals she’s done, Sakowski said she can’t pick a true favorite mural.

“I don’t think I could pick a favorite.  I just love seeing them and thinking about the particular group of students responsible for the specific mural.  I’ve had some amazing artists over the years.  This current one is pretty funny and I enjoy how happy it seems to make everyone that sees it,” she said. 

Gallery • 8 Photos

Maddy Cox

To start the mural project, AP Art and Design teacher Lauren Sakowski and her students junior Anna Matheus and sophomore Michelle Chen began sketching an outline for the mural, on May 14.