Through the crowded hallways of Cherry Hill East, the various vibrant murals painted on the walls undoubtedly attract the attention of passing students. Mrs. Miller, an art teacher, founded the admirable tradition of incorporating artistic murals throughout the school building that contribute to East’s overall environment.

Around 18 years ago, these murals started as a positive message and character education community project where Mrs. Miller and her commercial art and advanced commercial art students only took on a few boards a year. Over time, this grew into a creative tradition within the school.

“[It] grew to take over all the bulletin boards on the first floor to create positive messages and make the school look more artistic and beautiful,” said Mrs. Miller.

Miller said that the actual process of creating these murals takes approximately two to three months for the art students. The first month and a half of this lengthy process consists of students grouping up, coming up with ideas, creating rough sketches, and utilizing color theory based on an overall theme assigned by Mrs. Miller. After this, they do a stand-up presentation in front of all the classes, and the students vote on the best ideas. Students in Mrs. Miller’s advanced commercial art class take on the bigger boards around the building while her underclassmen get the smaller boards. Once the artistic murals are finished, they are kept up for the rest of the school year until the process starts all over again.

“Well, this year we’re doing it differently. Last year there was a lot of chaos in the hallways. We are going to keep that down by not doing the traditional way where we would have the kids in the hallways [painting],” said Mrs. Miller. “So they’re going to end up doing larger scale posters, my underclassmen, and we’ll be putting those on the boards later on and my upperclassmen will be doing nine-foot canvas murals and they’ll be working in the F wing hallway.”

For almost two decades, Mrs. Miller and her art students have been responsible for the creative murals and positive messages seen throughout the walls of Cherry Hill East. Their hard work and talent have made East’s atmosphere inviting and colorful.

“The students love it, they love the freedom, they love having something up of theirs for the entire year, and it makes them proud and it is something they can put on their college resume as community service for making the school beautiful for the year,” said Mrs. Miller.