Local art students enlivening Cobbet

LYNN – When second- and third-graders arrive at Cobbet Elementary School next month, they’ll be greeted by lions, elephants, a buck-toothed squirrel, swarms of ants and an orange tree frog.The images are part of a dazzling hallway mural painted over the summer by members of Good to Go, a crew of young artists affiliated with the Raw Art Works (RAW) program in downtown Lynn.The all-boy crew’s latest artistic endeavor has transformed the school’s second-floor hallway into Earth, with paintings of trees, vines, desert sands and tiny lakes. The artists even Velcro-ed fake gray rocks to the wooden cabinet supporting a live terrarium.”The idea is to incorporate the teaching frameworks into the murals,” said Cobbet Principal Brian Fay. “The murals contain many of the things that the second- and third-graders whose classrooms are on the second floor are going to learn about. The teachers can come out into the hall and the mural will help bring the lessons alive.”Jason Cruz, a RAW staffer, art mentor and head of the Good to Go program, explained that the so-called “teaching walls” project on the second floor is actually one of three. “Last year, the theme was outer space,” he said. “The third floor hallway is all planets and stars, rocketships and the galaxy. Next year, we’ll do the first floor, which will be under the sea.”According to Cruz, the Good to Go program has been running for about six years. “The kids come up with the ideas. That’s our motto: Plan it. Propose it. Put it up,” he said.Currently eight boys are participating in the mural project and two others are trying out, hoping to become members.”Everything you see here on the walls is done freehand,” said Cruz. “To become a member of the group, the kids have to show their work and be interviewed by their peers.”The Good to Go group includes Jorge Pimental, Ryan Karakoudas, George Diaz, Kadeem Dalley, Luis Deleon, Rafael Gonzalez, Dariel Valdez and Damien Coley.”I used to draw as a little kid but I really started painting when I came to RAW,” said Diaz, a 17-year-old Lynn Tech student who was putting the final touches on the sprawling life tree.The mural is likely to entertain and fuel the imaginations of the elementary schoolchildren, particularly the small details like the Egyptian sphinx that winks, the water fountain emblazoned with a squirrel peeking from a hole in a tree, bees that urge people to beeamazin’, and an evolutionary path that depicts the growth of a frog from tadpole to full-sized amphibian.”We established a science center here last year where our teachers can get materials to use,” said Fay. “These murals help bring it all together.”