CHS students transform local schools with murals

LOS LUNAS — A group of art students from the Los Lunas Schools is leaving a colorful mark on their community through vivid, large-scale mural projects.

Century High School students Lexie Lopez, Allison Quezada and Jenelle Locano are part of an elective CHS art class, “Century Wall Works,” taught by Amanda Quintana, CHS’s art, yearbook and service learning instructor.

The group is currently best known for their stylized Jaguar mural at Peralta Elementary School, which took the team five intense days to complete, said Lopez, a sophomore at CHS. At the onset of the Peralta project, the trio was joined by Eleora Lamond, a recently graduated Los Lunas High School student who interned with the Los Lunas Schools facility department last spring.

“Immediately after completing that mural, other schools reached out to us, and everyone wanted a mural, but it was summertime, so that was difficult,” said Quintana, as students prepared the grid for a new mural project in the Tomé Elementary library in the background.

“We were going to do another one at Century out in a courtyard, so everyone could see it. Then this one (at Tomé) was also in the works,” she elaborated. “We have a few other schools lined up, but those are just kind of on the back burner right now because it’s such a process to get together. It took a lot to get this going, and this is our first real go at it, but we will be doing another one at Century.”

The foundation for the class’s success was laid with an initial project closer to home — a student-designed hand-painted mural in Century High School’s teachers’ lounge. The large painting, intended to represent New Mexico, was initially started by previous CHS students.

Lopez and Quezada, along with their classmates, took on the task of finishing the piece.

“Most of it was already done, so we just added little touches and finished it,” explained Lexie Lopez. “We also added a lot of detail, like shadowing, and little details. I feel like it brought it to life.”

That experience jazzing up the CHS mural served as a springboard for the ambitious Peralta Elementary project, which required the students to create a mural from scratch.

The Peralta mural, an immense, hand-painted piece in the school’s new building, was the group’s first off-site project during a school day. The team, including Lexie, Allison, Janelle Locano and Los Lunas High School intern Elora Lamond — spent a grueling six to seven hours a day for five days on the job, the longest the group has ever worked on a single piece.

“It was a big difference,” said Quezada, “because it went from having everything laid out to starting fresh. It was a very unique experience, because we had to get on ladders, go up and down. It was done in parts, not a grid.”

Rather than using a traditional grid system, the Jaguar design was projected onto the gym’s flat-surfaced wall, and the outlines were traced. Though the initial design came from Tiffany McMinn, Los Lunas Schools’ director of facilities, the students were instrumental in the creative decisions, particularly the color palette. Members of the LLS Facilities staff were also instrumental in setting up the gym and facilitating the mural’s creation.

“(Ms. McMinn) had a vision of what she wanted on the wall, so, we just had to color-match, and then we had the picture of the Jaguar, and everything was set up,” Quezada said. “So, all we have to do is just, like, trace it and finish it.”

“When we put it on the wall, we picked our colors and, at first, some of us wanted really dark colors,” Lucero said. “We thought that would really ruin the complexion of the gym. So, we ended up picking lighter color ... and they came out, and it turned out better.”

“The colors gave it a much lighter complexion, and it helped the gym out, and then we also gave it a red background, and it helped make the Jaguar really pop,” Lamond said.

Locano, who didn’t participate in the Century High mural refab, didn’t know what to expect when she first arrived to paint the mural.

“I didn’t know what it was going to be like,” she said. “I didn’t have expectations to be a part of it. It just went really well, I guess. It turned out it was a little easier just because I expected it to be, like, really difficult.”

The final result brought plenty of praise from the community. During the school’s open house, many people assumed the professional-looking artwork was a manufactured covering, not a hand-painted piece created by high school students. Even now, students and parents often stop to admire the gym mural.

“It’s really awesome that they’re so in awe of it,” Locano remarked.

Lucero, who attended Peralta Elementary, said the project was deeply personal.

“In the old building, they actually had a mural of a sunflower,” she explained. “So I honestly thought it was going to bring a lot of attention, and everybody was going to like it. The whole time, honestly, when I was painting, I was reminded that the sunflowers were getting taken down. This was like a new mural that everybody would look at. I think it makes me feel so happy.”

The success of the Peralta mural has led other schools to reach out to Quintana, eager for their own student-painted art.

The group is currently working towards new projects — including a new mural for the Century High library. That design was chosen by a community-wide vote during Book Fair week, Quintana said.

Formalizing Century Wall Works is also a priority these days, she said.

“We’ve also been working on creating a logo and trying to create a really nice-looking portfolio,” Quintana said, adding that the group wants to turn the mural class into a sustained job opportunity for students after graduation.

“That’s what we’ve talked about,” she said. “Now we have to make that happen. It’s been something we’ve talked about quite a bit.”