Art project makes salmon ‘run’ at Legacy High

Confluence in the Classroom

Learn more at http://www.confluenceproject.org/education/

Legacy High School

Small alternative to Evergreen Public Schools’ comprehensive high schools. Legacy serves about 250 students in a wide variety of programs for ninth through 12th grades.

Toma Villa, Yakama artist

Learn more at http://www.tomavilla.com/

Chum salmon were running at Legacy High School on Friday. The large fish that have lately made a comeback in the Columbia River received help along their journey.

Wielding paintbrushes dipped in aqua green and cerulean blue acrylic paint, students brushed life into the fish as they swam along a 140-foot concrete wall stretching from the school’s front door to the parking lot above.

Funded by the local nonprofit Confluence, the mural is a project of Confluence in the Classroom, which connects K-12 classrooms with Native artists and tradition keepers to create meaningful projects about the Columbia River system.

Last fall, humanities teachers Jodi Williams and Diana Bledsoe wrote a successful grant. Together, they are working on the project with their creative writing classes at Legacy High School. With only 250 students in ninth through 12th grades, Legacy offers an alternative to Evergreen Public Schools’ large comprehensive high schools.

“We’re focusing on river, people and place,” Williams said. “We wanted to connect Confluence to their spoken word pieces and their art.”

Not only are the students painting the mural, but they have been drawing self-portraits and writing and performing poetry.

“Art felt like the right thing to do,” Bledsoe added.

Erika Rench, education coordinator of Confluence, connected the teachers with Toma Villa, an artist and tribal member of the Yakama Nation. Villa met with the teachers earlier to discuss the art project, and they decided upon salmon.

He walked into Legacy classrooms for the first time on Tuesday to meet students. He told them stories about fishing for salmon on the Columbia River and how, when he was young, he meandered a bit before he found his passion for art and a way to connect it to his heritage. Over time, he evolved from a graffiti artist and tagger to a husband and father who needed to support a family. After working as a tile setter for several years, he studied art at Portland State University.

Although he’d painted graffiti with cans of spray paint, he said, “I’d never touched a paintbrush until college.”

Being immersed in art forms opened doors for Villa, who since has traveled to England twice to cast his sculptures in iron.

“Chum are making a comeback in this area,” Villa said. “I wanted to show that on this wall.”

Friday morning, Villa leaned over the wall to offer direction to almost two dozen student artists sitting on the walkway and painting.

CJ Spurgeon, 19, Angelo Mattaliano, 19 and Keevin Arhart, 20, were among the student artists who sketched outlines of salmon on the concrete wall Thursday and then painted the mural Friday. Villa provided salmon sketches on paper as a guideline. Although all three of the young men had some experience painting, none had done anything on this scale.

“The biggest thing I’ve ever painted was my grandmother’s storefront,” Spurgeon said.

“My mom’s into art,” Mattaliano said. “I’ve helped her paint some cool stuff on my sister’s walls.”

Mattaliano added that since meeting Villa, a professional artist, he might consider an art career.

“He gets paid to do what he loves,” Mattaliano said.

Arhart had completed his last graduation requirement on Thursday and did not need to be at school Friday, but he was so enthusiastic about the salmon mural that he couldn’t stay away.

“Keevin is here because of this project,” Williams said.

“Toma went to college and traveled the world with his art,” Arhart said. “He didn’t grow up the best, but he’s turned his life around and is doing amazing things with his art.”

Between 10 and 20 students will be painting the over the weekend to complete the mural, Williams said. Then on Friday, the teachers and students will visit the Vancouver Land Bridge for a guided walking tour led by Colin Fogarty, executive director of Confluence.

Eventually, Bledsoe and Williams plan to work with students to clear out the flower beds along the salmon wall and replace flowers with native plants, and particularly ones Native Americans used in basketry and other handwork in their daily lives.

It’s Villa’s third year working with student artists for Confluence. He recently worked with students to complete Confluence murals at schools in Lyle and Troutdale and Mosier, Ore. Legacy High School is the only Clark County school that received a Confluence in the Classroom grant this year.

Villa knelt next to Sadie Spindler. He took her brush and in a few strokes, demonstrated a technique, then returned the brush to the girl.

How many fish are the students painting along the wall?

“As many as possible,” Villa said.

“We’re going with the flow,” said Spindler, 16, who painted cerulean blue on a fish.

Spindler said painting the mural “feels pretty nice. Once we’re done with high school, it’s always going to be here. It’s our legacy to Legacy.”