Mural Was Tribute to art

When a person takes it upon oneself to change the world surrounding him or her, amazing things can happen. This was the situation over the two decades that Karen Mealiffe dedicated herself to the students of La Cañada High School, building an art program that challenged complacency, fostered creativity, and bred acceptance.

In Ms. Mealiffe’s art program, students were encouraged to exceed expectations, challenge themselves, and find an inner voice through their work be it in any medium from pen and ink, painting or pastels, to ceramics, photography or even filmmaking.

The murals painted by various students in the alley leading to the art rooms were a tribute to this spirit and a physical reminder of the esteemed place the art program held in the hearts of those of us involved in it. Someone not in touch with the art program may have looked at the murals and seen only pop culture references and lighthearted cartoon images. But for many of those lucky enough to have even one class in the art program, we knew that those murals represented passion, creativity, and a desire for expression in a place too often defined by standardized tests and memorized facts.

I am crushed that this decades-in-the-making tribute to the arts at La Cañada High School has been wiped clean so casually and with so little forethought. (It frightens me to even think that this may actually have been done under careful consideration.) Yet even if no physical reminder remains, nothing can take away the spirit of the LCHS art program under Karen Mealiffe as long as all of us who were challenged, inspired, and touched by our experiences there, never forget.

Andrew Loschert

New York, New York

LCHS, Class of 1995