At the beginning of the year, members of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) designed and painted a mural for Dr. Philip Bomeli’s office at Solon Orthodontics. NAHS, similar to the National Honor Society, is an organization in which students gain community service and volunteer hours through art-related activities. The mural fit in with the students’ volunteer hours. NAHS was created last year as the Solon chapter of the National Art Education Association.

The individuals that worked on the mural included SHS students Kiera Hale, Lindsey Li, Helen Wang and Aria Wei, along with their NAHS advisor, Jennifer Thompson.

Thompson explained that as the NAHS advisor, her role in the mural process was to correspond with the orthodontic office and their interior designer to come up with a plan for the mural.

The students were asked to paint a design that incorporated something Cleveland and Solon-related. Wei, who is an officer for NAHS along with Hale, worked with the information suggested by the office and interior designer to create a design for the mural.

“We had a first draft…The office said they liked the idea but they wanted to change it up,” Wei said. “For the second design, I pulled images from the internet for inspiration, and I made a design based on what they asked and what the interior designer said would work.”

The final design that the students worked on included the Cleveland skyline and some aspects of Solon, like the gazebo in Downtown Solon.

In the past, the Art Club and NAHS have painted murals around the school. However, this was one of the first large projects the group was involved in outside of the school.

“I was excited that they could get their work out into the community,” Thompson said.

According to Wang and Li, the mural at the orthodontist’s office was simpler than the ones at school. They both worked on the mural outside the foreign languages department in SHS, which took months to complete. The mural for Bomeli’s office only took one day to paint.

Hale explained that the mural at the office was also a simple process since the wall’s base color was their mural’s base color. However, the mural at the office was a more specific and professional experience, Wei explained.

Overall, the students explained how they were proud of their work, especially since the mural would reach a larger audience than the ones at the school.

“It’s kinda scary when we were painting it, because I was like, ‘Oh my god people are going to stand here and look at the mistakes,’” Li said. “But I think Aria did a really good job with the design.”