Connecting the pieces of the Lew Wallace mural

Jun. 8—At Lew Wallace Elementary School, the arts are not just extracurricular activities. As an elevated arts school, arts are integrated into lessons to help promote creativity and reinvigorate students' love for learning. That's why the school and its students partnered with Erika Harding, owner of The Groove Art Space, to create an end of the year art project.

Over the course of four days a week and four weeks, first graders through fifth graders joined forces for an hour to create a mosaic tile mural to be presented near the end of the school year. On June 5, students and faculty gathered in the school cafeteria for the mural's unveiling.

Students talked about their achievement and the challenges of taking on the project. All of the students were proud of and excited to share their finished project.

"For a couple of sessions, I thought we wouldn't get done, but we did. My favorite part of the project was cutting the glass and putting it all together, and doing the grouting," third grader Layla Rodriguez said.

Elijah Pacheco, a fourth grade student, talked about how worthwhile the project felt once it was completed.

"It was pretty challenging but when it got done it was amazing," Pacheco said. "It's one of the best projects I've ever done."

The mural features the Albuquerque skyline, Sandia Mountains, hot air balloons and buildings Downtown that surround the school, which showcase the students' love of Albuquerque .

Melanie Lewis, community school coordinator, said she saw an article about the Groove Art Space from the Journal, and it inspired her come up with an art project for the students.

"My job is to build a connection between artists and students. I want to connect our school to the greater community," she said.

Lewis was looking for a "mutually beneficial" partnership between an artist and the school and decided to reach out to Harding, owner of the Groove Art Space.

Lewis and Harding then reached out to Abby Butler, a community partner.

Butler helped organize funding for the event to ensure artists were being paid and students had all the material they needed .

"At the end of the year, we realized we had extra funding and wanted to share it with the school. We found some partners to help out and put down roughly $2,000 from our side to help fund the project," Butler said.

With plans and a project, it was finally time to get students involved. Faculty looked to Amy Taylor, one of the teachers.

"Nobody has ever done anything like this before. I love arts and crafts so this was very exciting," Taylor said.

Taylor said she prepared students a week before the project began by making paper mosaic. She taught students about exploring color combinations and moving the paper to create something beautiful.

Students were able to sign up to work on the mosaic, which meant Taylor got to work with students she had never worked with before.

"Some of the students I had never seen, some only spoke Spanish, so I'm thankful Erika was able to translate and help all of these kids experience something so awesome," Taylor said. "I appreciate how the community came together for the students."

Students weren't the only ones interested in the project. Taylor said some teachers would come by after school to place a tile or two on the mosaic.

"This project allowed me to be a kid and learn how to do mosaic, too," Taylor said.

To create mosaic, students had to cut and glue the tile pieces together. However, Taylor said Harding was a great teacher and stressed the importance of safety.

Harding made sure students always wore safety goggles and gave them tile mosaic pieces to work with instead of glass pieces to make sure no students harmed themselves or their peers.

Harding said she was impressed by the students' passion for the project and how determined they were to complete the mural on time.

"I had no idea it would turn out this beautifully. Some of the kids who didn't think they would have fun ended up loving it," Harding said. "They lost steam for a minute, but once they started doing the grout they were excited to see the end result," she said.

Tanya Silva, art teacher at Lew Wallace, said starting projects like these can make a huge difference in students' lives.

"I always say, invest in us and we can invest in the community. When you integrate art into the community, beautiful things happen," Silva said.