Colleen Williams and Elijah Lemieux show off their mural on Common Street in Pelham. (Courtesy)

This summer, residents of Pelham combined art and environmental education to create murals around storm drains on Common Street and at Pelham High School. The town of Pelham’s Environmental Regulation Compliance Specialist, Dena Hoffman, was inspired by murals that are popular in the south. These illustrate the importance of keeping our waters clean and it was decided to run a design contest for Pelham residents. The goal of these murals was to educate the public about the impacts of littering in storm drains and where that water flows to. With her position focusing mainly on water quality, Ms. Hoffman felt like this was a perfect project to engage the public in environmental education.

The winners of the contest included Colleen Williams and Elijah Lemieux who painted the mural on Common St and members of Pelham High School’s National Art Honor Society who painted the mural at Pelham High School (pictured from left to right) Morgan Mooskian, Kahlen Palumbo, Mia Brancieri, and Shelby Hewitt, (not pictured) Shaelyn Bonaparte, Madison King, Shelby Hoey, Anna Buonarosa, and Natasha Buonarosa.

Colleen said this about the mural on Common St: “We wanted to keep things simple for this mural, even with two big goals: challenging citizens to think about the impact they have on the cleanliness of our water and decorating our town with a pleasant design. We decided to transform the storm drain into a small pond with some wildlife native to our town to help open the discussion of water pollution affecting us close to home. Elijah and I have been creating art from a young age. I went to Pelham High School, and I am now furthering my education to become an art teacher. My art page on Instagram is @colleenrita.art, and I am taking commissions through colleenrita.art@gmail.com, too. Elijah was homeschooled and has just graduated high school with plans to study graphic design. His Instagram is @ttbdubs where he posts his artwork.”

Pelham High School’s Art Honor Society stated this about their mural at Pelham High School: “The objective of this mural was to discourage littering in storm drains or culverts. For the high school, we painted the ocean coming out of the storm drain. We thought bringing the beauty of the ocean to the storm drain would encourage people to treat our environment how they would want beaches to look. The design is purposefully minimalistic, made up of bold colors and lines. In order to give off a positive message, we kept the designs simple and with bright, overexaggerated colors. The Pelham High School Art Honor Society is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to leave a permanent impact on our community.” Check out @pelhamhighart for more artworks from Pelham High School students.

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