LPOHS students create mosaic
(Photo courtesy RANDY WILHELM) Lake Pend Oreille High School art students, with the help of local artist Leata Judd, right, spent several weeks creating the 6-foot ceramic mosaic pictured behind them, which will serve to welcome guests to the lobby of the Bonner Community Food Bank.
(Photo courtesy Randy Wilhelm) Lake Pend Oreille High School art students spent several weeks creating a 6-foot ceramic mosaic for the lobby of Bonner Community Food Bank.
SANDPOINT — Apple by apple, leaf by tedious leaf, Lake Pend Oreille High School art students recently constructed an approximately 6-foot-square ceramic mosaic, now displayed in the front lobby of Bonner Community Food Bank.
"We love that the students came in and put their time into creating the mosaic," said Debbie Love, executive director of the food bank. "It brightens up the lobby and is a great welcome for people coming into the food bank."
Love said clients enjoy the artwork and she has heard several comments, complimenting the students on a job well done and how well the mosaic reflects the food bank. The little ones visiting the food bank with their families particularly enjoy the piece, counting the apples and leaves while they wait.
Randy Wilhelm, career-technical education instructor for LPOHS, said the students spent six or seven weeks on the mosaic. The piece includes a large apple tree, a sun, a basket of vegetables, a pumpkin, flowers, frogs, and of course, the words "Bonner Community Food Bank. Wilhelm said the entire piece likely weighs a couple hundred pounds. It was so large and heavy, Wilhelm said they had to build it in pieces at school, and then put it together on the wall in the food bank.
"It's really about connecting the kids with the community and we are always looking for these types of opportunities," Wilhelm said, adding he also enjoys recycling "stuff" into works of art.
This isn't the first piece of art by LPOHS students around the community. A couple years ago, Wilhelm said, LPOHS art students, a mix of ninth to twelfth grades, constructed the mosaic for the Pend Oreille Arts Council, which is located just in front of the POAC door. The students also made the sign in front of the school.
As teenagers do, the students grumbled a bit when Wilhelm began instructing them to make all the leaves and other pieces for the mosaic. But after it started to come together and they could see the "big picture," they took pride in their work and were happy with how it turned out, Wilhelm said.
"They put a lot of time and effort into it, and we really appreciate that," Love said.
Local artist Leata Judd, this year's poster artist for the Festival at Sandpoint, also helped out with the artwork, as she has done each day for about four years. At 88-years-old, Wilhelm said, she is a model of lifelong learning, working shoulder-to-shoulder with the kids, enthusiastically encouraging them to create works of art.
"On any given day, she is the youngest person in the room, because she just loves art," Wilhelm said. "She is like the grandma everyone wishes they had; the kids really gravitate toward her."
Judd has helped out with many projects, including the food bank and POAC mosaics, and said she enjoys every minute of her volunteerism at LPOHS.
Judd moved to Sandpoint from Bayview about five years ago after her husband passed away. One day she needed some help carrying some paper mache artwork for a parade, so she stopped by LPOHS to see if a student could help her out. That's when she met Wilhelm. He asked if she would willing to show some of the students how to do paper mache, and she has been there every day since.
Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.