With a student-created mural on every landing and multiple throughout the wings of classrooms, installations of art are aplenty throughout our hallways.
Murals, new and old, are some of the first things that students see when they walk into the building. The most recent addition to the mural collection at Strath Haven was painted in June of 2024 by CJ Chen ’24.
These murals add to the community, affecting how we view the building itself and the ways in which students can express their creative freedom through art.
“They’re certainly more pleasant to look at than a plain, beige wall,” Strath Haven High School’s Interim Principal Andrea LaPira said. “I think any time there’s student artwork in the building it always adds to our school culture.”
Chen painted their mural at the end of their senior year. They also had help from members of Fish Club, a club that they pioneered, which focused on learning more about aquatic biology.
“I did it as a part of my independent study last year in the spring,” Chen said. “I interned for this Watershed Protection Team, and so on the days I didn’t drive in and go there to intern, I would just work on painting the mural.”
The painting took about three weeks to complete and is located on the fourth floor. It includes animal species native to the area, such as brook trouts—the state fish of Pennsylvania—and an assortment of local water plant species.
Chen notes that they got help from multiple advisors along the way, including art teacher Mrs. Jennifer Rodgers and their independent study advisor Ms. Kathleen Freeman.
“I would say, if anyone has any ideas for any project at Strath Haven, the arts department and that kind of community as a whole is really supportive,” Chen said.
Before the painting can start, any mural proposed by a student has to be approved by the principal, and a mock-up is created as an example of what the design will look like.
“They have to write a proposal,” Rodgers said. “What it is is drawings of what it’s going to look like and the location, and then it’s up to the principal to approve it. To my knowledge, they’ve always approved them.”
Some murals were created through various senior assignments, such as senior service projects—no longer a regular practice at Strath Haven—or AP Art Legacy projects. This includes the mural on the landing of the main staircase between the second and third floors, made in collaboration with No Place for Hate.
No Place for Hate is a program created by the Anti-Defamation League, or the ADL, with the goal of combating prejudice and bias in schools and communities.
“I had three students work on that mural to incorporate the No Place for Hate logo with some other imagery to make a mural that was all about acceptance and tolerance,” Rodgers said.
LaPira explained that while Strath Haven no longer partners with No Place for Hate like they did at the time, the ideas immortalized in the mural are still good messages and valued in the community.
Other murals on the staircase landings include one painted during AP Art by Connor McGaffin ’17, an abstract piece using red, white, and blue. When students walk into the high school through the first floor doors, McGaffin’s mural is one of the first things seen with its location on the landing between the first and second floors.
“When the AP exams are submitted, the seniors in the class then have an opportunity to make a legacy project,” Rodgers said. “That mural is an ode to Strath Haven High School, so in it you can see there’s sort of a very abstracted Panther.”
Other AP Art Legacy Projects can be seen on the walls of the art classroom, with ornately designed art on ceiling panels and portraits on the doors of supply cabinets. Some can even be seen in the Childhood classroom in the third floor Family and Consumer Sciences wing as an overflow of ceiling tile art in collaboration with the FCS department.
The oldest mural, however, is a mural in the third floor art and music wing that depicts Martin Luther King Jr. alongside one of his famous quotes, “One day I hope my children can be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” It was painted before the renovations, estimated by Rodgers to predate 1998.
“When the building was renovated in 2001, a new academic wing was built, which is where all your academic classes are,” Rodgers said. “That mural was in the original building. It was not painted over. Most of the other murals were either painted over or destroyed because a new school was built.”
There have been instances of other murals getting painted over, some purposeful and some accidental. LaPira commented on the painting-over of murals, saying that the feelings of the Strath Haven community are always considered before the decision is made.
Rodgers recalls one small mural near the FCS classrooms that was painted over during a repainting of the walls on the 3rd floor, raising some questions for people at Strath Haven to ponder.
“When do you paint over them? Do you paint over them? Who paints over them? And then, if they get painted over, do we put something new over it?” Rodgers said. “I think those are all great questions for us to consider as a community.”
