At Eastside High School, a once-unused hallway lined with aging lockers has been transformed into a lasting symbol of student identity, school history and creative expression.
The newly unveiled mural, created through the Mindful Messages program, stretches along a wall on a hallway that students pass daily. The artwork reflects Eastside’s history of integration, student diversity and cultural identity, while also giving students a direct role in creating something permanent inside their school.
For educators and artists involved in the project, the mural represents more than decoration. It reflects a growing conversation in education: how schools can support artistic expression as a tool for emotional well-being and student engagement.
“Mindful Messages is a mural program in the school system that is really designed to be a movement,” said Jenna Horner, founder and director of the project. “To bring optimistic imagery, uplifting messages and collaborative creative engagement for young people in schools.”
Horner said the Eastside mural replaced a row of lockers installed in the 1970s that students no longer use.
“This was a hallway of lockers that were built in the 1970s. It was very dingy, and none of the lockers are even used anymore,” Horner said. “The lockers were removed and the wall was painted over and pressure-washed for us to retell this very beautiful new story for Eastside to have this mural that will last for the rest of time.”
She said designing the mural took nearly a full year because of the research required to accurately reflect the school’s history.
“I do a lot of intentional research that’s based on the history of integration for each school,” she said. “One of my goals is that we honor history through the content of the mural and then, through the action of painting, we become hyper present and also leave this legacy for the future.”
The mural includes student portraits, cultural imagery, school activities and references to Eastside’s historical identity. Several students served as models for the painted figures, allowing them to literally see themselves reflected on school walls.
National education data shows why projects like this matter. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, students with strong arts participation are more likely to demonstrate higher academic achievement, improved attendance and stronger civic engagement. Research from the Americans for the Arts organization also shows arts education helps students develop problem-solving skills, empathy and confidence.
Horner said she believes those benefits are especially important during adolescence.
“It’s their formative years, so I think really it’s one of the most important medicines that students can be engaged with,” she said. “It’s proven at this point that really any creative engagement is going to be deeply helpful for mental health, for anxiety, especially neurodivergent students.”
She said hands-on artistic work gives students something many academic settings often lack: tactile, present-moment learning.
“My goal for Mindful Messages is for students to experience tactile hands-on learning where they are asked to be present with material and have an action that allows them to feel embodied and creative,” Horner said.
For many students, the mural’s impact was immediate. Isabela Perez-Thomas said she discovered the mural unexpectedly while walking through the hallway with friends.
“I saw this and I was like, ‘this is gorgeous,’” Perez-Thomas said. “As soon as I looked at the painting, I was like, ‘oh, my goodness, I see myself in it immediately.’”
Although her contribution to the mural was small — a flower she painted for about 20 minutes — she said the experience changed how she viewed participation in collective art.
“I only painted this little orange blob,” Perez-Thomas said. “But now seeing that orange blob turned into something beautiful and part of this giant whole cooperative of people and of love and diversity and students and education.”
She said the project also changed how she thinks about legacy.
“No one will know in 30 years that I’m the one that painted that flower, but if they see it and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s a pretty flower,’ I still know I helped them see beauty in something that before was some old dusty lockers.”
For Natalia Pozos-Thomas, the mural reinforced art’s power as communication.
“I think art, especially visual art, is such an easy but also such an expressive way to say what you feel or what you mean,” Pozos-Thomas said. “This mural really shows everyone exactly what we want them to know: Be yourself.”
Pozos-Thomas, who has practiced art since childhood, said the project expanded her view of what student artists can accomplish.
“Miss Horner involving us in this project really showed that you can do a lot more with art and that you shouldn’t just limit what you can do to what people expect it to be,” she said.
Even small contributions created a lasting sense of pride.
“My face is not even on there, but I just feel so proud,” she said. “Walking by it every morning, it’s just so nice to see that I can help even a little bit with the impact of our school.”
The mural also arrives during a period when arts programs nationwide continue to face uneven funding. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, while nearly all public schools offer some arts instruction, access often differs depending on district resources and school priorities.
Horner said programs like Mindful Messages can help fill that gap by making art visible in everyday student life.
“There’s lots of negative messaging that students get,” she said. “My goal is that they can have messaging on a wall, imagery on a wall, in a space where they spend the majority of their time and feel the opposite.”
For Eastside students, that message now stretches across an entire hallway, turning a former row of lockers into a permanent reflection of who they are, where they came from and what they hope their school can become.