MILFORD, Conn. — Story by Maya Rosado and Caroline Doyle, Jonathan Law High School
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
One group of high school students is hoping that their pictures save a thousand lives.
At Jonathan Law High School in Milford, Advanced Studio Art students recently collaborated with the Wings4Peace Project. The Wings4Peace Project aims to address the urgent crisis of gun violence and inspire peace through this national, unified flash mob art project.
The organization is led by Lorie Lewis, a Milford native who simply wanted to use the power of the arts to help end gun violence and inspire peace. “So the idea was to create wings art,” Lewis said.
“Wings being a symbol of safety and freedom and new directions. Each month, on the anniversary of the Uvalde shooting, people would add a word to create a message that would be revealed in October. The final message is peace in America means you do an art project. It’s been amazing to meet the kids here and everyone has been so incredibly talented and come up with so many beautiful messages.”
The students were given creative freedom to create any art piece that encompasses what peace in America means to them. Wings are used as a symbol of safety, freedom, and new directions. Many students used butterflies to capture this message in their pieces.
“A little bit about my art is that inside the wings there are newspapers and if you look closely they all say little things that would be found in the newspapers,” junior Isabelle Maselli said.
“It shows the repetitive nature of our future. Children shouldn’t have to suffer from this or be exposed to this but that’s the sad reality.”
Led by Rachael Murphy, an art teacher at Jonathan Law, the students shared their work with Lewis. Each student expressed their distress on this issue differently within their art.
Murphy shares her motivation to involve her students in this movement. “I’m just so happy that my students enjoyed doing it and I know they are going to remember working on this project for a long time,” Murphy said.
Lewis believes in the power of creativity and the power of unity. They believe that everyone deserves to be seen and heard. She says, “collective creative energy is unstoppable when we join hands.
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