In the coming months, the PAC’s vacant walls hope to undertake an artistic change. White paint covered with color as the Art Club’s mural is installed. A mural detailing the many forms of art found within WHS. 

Tia Factor, 2D studio art teacher and Art Club advisor, found inspiration for a mural on the walls of Grant High School. Grant has multiple murals around the school depicting the diversity in their student body, full portraits of students lining the walls. 

Factor wanted to bring this idea to Wilsonville and found a place to make it real, the Performing Arts Center. Specifically, the walls of the wheelchair accessible ramp that leads from the lobby to the halls. With its location in such an arts-heavy portion of the school, a final idea was added to the project, using this mural to celebrate those within the arts. 

Factor explains, “I want to make sure there’s a lot of different kinds of people that are included in this, but the unifying element is the arts.” 

So far, Audrey Towne has found herself taking the initiative in beginning the project, an instant connection to it formed as Ms. Factor pitched the idea. 

“I really wanted to see my friends up on the wall because they’re both very artistic people. Like, my friend Julia does beading and a bunch of different, super intricate crafts, and my friend Aaron does digital art. I really wanted to see them represented.“ Towne explains, proving the project to be a sort of love letter to those she cares about.

The actual process of making the mural will not include a wet paint sign in the PAC. The project being made entirely in Ms. Factor’s room. 

First, students prime large boards, using multiple coats of white paint to create a blank surface. Then, photos of art students in the midst of their art are projected onto the surface and traced with a pencil, allowing anybody to set up with an easel and fill out the details of the sketch with paint. 

All of these steps come together to create one chunk of the whole; these many portraits are to be mounted on the PAC’s wall to create the final mural.

Towne has an intense fondness for painting, something she feels proud of, a desire to “have something of mine just, like, immortalized into the school. I wanted to have something that’s shown and just seen, and people admire and appreciate [it].“

Art Club meets every Tuesday after school and encourages anyone to come help work on the mural! No matter what art level, anyone can help, whether that be priming, tracing, or painting.