Coneflowers and milkweed are in bloom at Lawrence’s Lee Road Park, and even after summer is over, a large, colorful mural near the park’s wildflower meadow will allow visitors to enjoy flowering native plants year-round.
Students from the National Art Honor Society at Lawrence North High School have spent some of their summer days designing and painting a new mural on the side of a building at Lee Road Park, 6200 Lee Rd., at the south side of the parking lot.
Incoming junior Teagan Hatley said the group was asked near the end of last school year to help with the mural.
“We were trying to get a lot of natural pollinator plants in here, and we wanted to have a monarch butterfly as well,” she said. “And kind of like a pop-artish style.”
Kylie Atkinson, also an incoming junior, said the mural celebrates native plants in a colorful way.
“We’ve been learning about the names — some of them are pretty hard to pronounce,” Atkinson said. “We’ve been learning about that from (Liz Masur) and we always go over to the field to find a reference, or try to color match, or those kinds of things. So, yeah, we learned a lot.”
Lillian McClintock, who will be a senior this year, described the flowers represented in the mural. She pointed out two types of coneflowers — purple and yellow.
“These are the hoary vervain — this is the one we don’t know how to pronounce,” she said, laughing as she hesitated over the name. “(And) this is a milkweed … butterfly milkweed.”
The mural also will depict a large monarch butterfly.
McClintock said she’s been drawn to art since she was very young and cultivated that interest through her school art classes. Atkinson said she was homeschooled before starting at Lawrence North and she’s been taking “a ton” of art classes since.
“It’s just been a way of me, like exploring my passion,” she said. “Then coming to National Art Honor Society has been even a more in-depth way of just exploring art.”
Hatley said she wasn’t that interested in art until the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“Because we were stuck inside, so I found something to do and I really liked it,” she said. “I kept going with it. It’s just really relaxing and it’s a good way to express myself.”
Masur, an elected member of the Lawrence Common Council and a recently certified master naturalist, has been monitoring the students’ progress and helping them with any questions about native plants.
“When they were mapping out what they were doing, we … came over here and looked at the different plants,” she said, pointing out the wildflower meadow. “They know milkweed is the only plant that the monarch butterfly caterpillars can eat and how populations have plummeted.”
Masur said the butterfly meadow is one of four in Lawrence public parks. The other three are at Jenn Park, 10450 E. 63rd. St., Veteran’s Memorial Park, 12150 E. 62nd St.; and Richardt Park, 4510 N Richardt Ave.
“The City of Lawrence Common Council, back in 2021, gave $15,000 that was used to plant this and to draw the signage for different parks,” Masur said. “There were about 25 different types of native (flowers) planted and five or six grasses. And the whole idea is that there’s something blooming from May through October.”
And after October, the new mural will help remind park visitors of what will be blooming again in spring.
Students will continue working on the mural into the 2024-25 school year, Hatley said, but they expect it will be done by the end of this calendar year.
National Art Honor Society
The National Art Honor Society was established in 1978 by the National Art Education Association, according to the NAEA website.
To qualify, high school students must have earned an A in art classes, have two teacher recommendations, maintain a B average in other subject areas and perform at least eight hours of arts-related community service.
The organization also offers a National Junior Art Honor Society for middle-school grades.
Members of the National Art Honor Society are eligible for special programs, exhibits and scholarships.
For more, visit arteducators.org/national-art-honor-societies.
