“This looks like an art school. It’s like walking through a gallery.”
That’s what East Grand Rapids Middle School art teacher Holly Lampen hears from new students and new families when they first see the middle school. In Lampen’s tenure, more than ten different art installations have been added inside and outside at the school.
The latest large-scale art project to be added was created through a partnership between the Foundation, the Friends of the EGR Library, and the Middle School PTO. And it was made possible by an East alumnus who used to sneak into the Wealthy Elementary art room to leave drawings of the Little Mermaid on the whiteboard.
The new Middle School mural was funded in part by a Foundation grant Lampen wrote in 2024, but it got its start in a fortuitous conversation at a field hockey game. “I saw Holly at our daughters’ East field hockey game and on the sidelines proposed the idea that her students could take ownership and do something special” with a mural for the Teen Room at the library, says Friends of the Library vice president Kyle Watson. “I assured Holly that the Friends would remove financial barriers and get approvals and encouraged a partnership with the Foundation. The library and schools are a perfect match!”
The Foundation grant enabled Lampen to bring in Disney animation artist Dylan Bonner ‘09 to work with her students on the project. “Dylan is a superstar,” Lampen says. “He’s truly larger than life. He’s this six and a half foot tall guy who you wouldn’t expect to be drawing Disney princesses. Athletes relate to him. Art people, Disney people. He instantly gets kids’ respect. Last year he had a bunch of football players all trying to perfect their drawings of Ariel. The fact that he’s an alum is a bonus.”
When Bonner was in 4th grade at Wealthy, Lampen was his art teacher. “I think we started the after school art club because of Dylan,” she says. “It was clear how talented he was even then.”
Bonner has worked with EGRMS students on the mural that now graces the hallway above the lockers. He’s also worked with them on the similar mural that’s now in the Teen Room at the EGR public library. And he’s working with them now on a third part of the mural that will be added to the Teen Room because the first one was so well received.
The whole project shows the power of partnership, and something else too. “These projects convey our commitment to visual arts,” Lampen says. “It shows everyone who comes to our school that we support the arts.”
