Students in Montgomery County use both art and technology to teach diversity and inclusion.
“When she was first mentioned, I thought she was really cool,” Ellisa Sadler said.
Seventeen-year-old Sadler was talking about Black woman guitarist and 1940s hitmaker Rosetta Tharpe.
“And so, painting her and the guitar,” Sadler said, “was just really cool to see her in a different light in such a different time.”
That is why Tharpe was featured, along with several other Black artists, including the late actor Chadwick Boseman and visual artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, was featured on a nine-foot-tall mural.
The piece was painted on a wall inside Hatboro-Horsham Senior High School, where Sadler was a senior.
As president of the school’s Black Student Union, Saddler helped teach Black history, not just through art but also by using technology, with QR codes near the mural that link to more information about each artist.
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“And it makes it more fun and more interactive, definitely more engaging to people,” she said.
Saddler’s classmate and fellow senior, 18-year-old Amy Park, helped choose the artists for the mural. As an Asian student and vice president of the school’s National Art Honor Society, Park said she was passionate about ensuring all students of color knew they were a cherished part of the school’s family.
“So, I think it’s really nice that we have like a little space that kind of represents us, represents the Black kids in our school,” Park said.
Honor Society faculty advisor Leah Ellert said it filled her heart to watch students from all backgrounds work so hard on this passion project.
“It’s all about belonging and just feeling like you are a part of a community, and that’s exactly what the art kids have and the music kids have here, and we’re sharing it with everybody else,” Ellert said.
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The students will continue to work on the mural through January. They hope to have it ready in time for a Black History Month concert on Saturday, Feb. 22.