Volunteers from Niles North’s National Art Honor Society have created spring-themed murals on windows near Zara and Anthropologie at Westfield Old Orchard. According to Lori Real, a Niles North fine arts instructor who worked closely with the students, the Westfield corporate office “wanted to reach out to the young community and beautify an empty store front.”

Despite approaching finals and AP testing, students volunteered to take advantage of the opportunity to publicly showcase their artwork. They worked from morning until mid-afternoon on May 23 and May 27 and were able to finish the mural on those two days.

Real found the fact that the students even took on the challenge to be remarkable and to be a “testimony to their dedication to art.” Students independently came up with spring-related design ideas, discussed them during collaborative meetings, and used Photoshop to experiment with different color schemes.

“We picked the designs we thought would appeal to shoppers. It was almost a lesson in advertising. We wanted to appeal to all generations,” Real said.

Despite this preparation, there was an aspect of spontaneity since the students weren’t sure of where they were painting until the day before they began. On the day of, according to senior Sally Lavengood, who worked on the mural, the students split up into three groups with each group designing one of the panels based on a particular theme, which she felt made the mural “busy” and without “much cohesion.”

Many people, from strangers to parents, stopped by while the students painted the mural to interact with them. Anna Poloz, another current senior, painted while her father, who is an artist himself, restrained himself from painting and offered tidbits of advice instead. For junior Luca Ferincz, another volunteering student on the mural project, her mother couldn’t bare to resist painting alongside her daughter.

After the mural’s completion, Shannon Ridgeway, District 219’s marketing director, called the mural’s designs “colorful masterpieces” and was impressed by the students’ talents and capabilities, assuring that the collaboration between Westfield Old Orchard and Niles North artists was mutually beneficial.