Within the past few years, the art club has taken an interactive approach to the school by painting the stairwell and two murals on the walls. This year, the club’s students plan to complete a similar project when painting the hallway along the school’s art wing.
These ideas started with the painting the green stairwell in the Penn-Trafford hallways. Zoe Smith, a senior member of the club, said, “It began as an idea to bring more artwork to the school and throughout the halls. We found the staircases to be a fun idea considering how frequently they are used.”
Brenda Christeleit, teacher and coordinator of the art club, agreed with this statement.
“The club wanted to do something lasting that would beautify the school. The ‘starwell,’ as we called it, seemed like the perfect option!” Christeleit said.
Both Smith and Christeleit concurred that the staff has been very positive about the implementation of large-scale art in P-T, saying that both superintendent Matthew Harris and high school principal Tony Aquilio have been avid supporters of the arts and their projects.
These kinds of ideas inspired what will be the quote mural that will be in the art, band, and choir hallway of the school.
Because of the success of the first stairwell, “The upcoming quote mural was [Aquilio’s] idea. I suggested that the mural quote be painted on a large canvas that we have had since the renovation, and he greatly approved it,” Christeleit added.
After the creation of the “starwell,” the students received a combination of requests and ideas from the club members.
“The club receives many requests for murals and artwork,” Christeleit explained, “but it is not always as simple as it may appear because of the planning, coordination involved and the sheer scale.”
Typically, the first step for the art club to conceptualize a mural has been starting with an idea. In addition to Aquilio requesting this new mural, “It just so happened that Mrs. [Amy] Horvat showed us the exact same mural and quote not long before, so I knew that this is something that administration feels strongly about,” Christeleit said about the idea of a quote wall.
Smith explained that the typical production process of something like the ‘starwell’ or the upcoming mural have taken somewhere in between 10 to 15 weeks to design and execute.
“The amount of people needed to create these massive pieces can be anywhere from one all the way to 12. I have completed a mural on my own, which is the parrot in the second-floor science wing, but some projects require many more hands. The more the merrier!” Smith said.
For the students of the school, the process does not interrupt the ongoings of getting from class to class.
“We do the majority of painting after school. Even when we painted the starwell, the stairwell was never closed off,” Christeleit explained.
For members of the art club and people outside of it alike, there is a touch of artistic value added to wherever projects such as the upcoming quote mural is created. Smith expressed that, regardless if people stop to admire it or not, it will still be of value for any of those who want to examine it.

Rio Scarcelli, Editor in Chief