Sammi Hoovler, a senior in the Columbus Virtual Pathway program, works on her senior project, a mural of monarch butterflies at Mill Race Park.
A local student has created a beautiful, vivid mural of monarch butterflies for her senior project — and spread her own wings in the process.
Sammi Hoovler is a senior in the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.’s Columbus Virtual Pathway (CVP) program, with Columbus North as her home school. Her mural, which depicts a group of monarchs perched on plants and flying against a blue background, is located in Mill Race Park near the Eighth Street entrance, said parks department officials.
She came up with the idea to incorporate painting into her senior project during her junior year, when she was still attending North in person. At the time, she thought about painting something at the school, but her plans changed when she transferred to CVP.
As for her subject matter, Hoovler picked monarch butterflies as a way to advocate for the species’ preservation.
“Monarchs had just became endangered, and that kind of hit close to home to me and my family, because we had always raised milkweed and watched caterpillars grow and turn into butterflies each year,” said Hoovler. “And I felt like it could be something to advocate for, since they’re native here. And it’s not like I am extraordinarily wealthy and can donate to make meaningful change in any other way. So why not try to make change in the way that I can?”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature recently added the migratory monarch — a subspecies of the monarch butterfly — as endangered in its Red List of Threatened Species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists monarch butterflies as a candidate for inclusion under the Endangered Species Act, but the species is not yet federally protected.
For Hoovler, who describes herself as shy and a bit of a “recluse”, the scariest part of the project was talking with people as she figured out where to paint her mural. Throughout the project, she had to communicate with the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department and school officials.
“I also had to get used to people in the public talking to me, which I was scared of at first,” she said. “But everybody was so nice. I had about, I don’t know, 10 people each day come up to me and tell me how much they liked the painting or ask me my inspiration or how long I’d been working on it, ask me their questions, tell me their stories. I’ve had art teachers, people who’ve raised butterflies come up and talk to me. And it’s been fantastic.”
She still has some details she would like to finish on the mural, though she isn’t working on it every day, especially given current weather conditions.
Altogether, Hoovler has logged over 100 hours on her senior project. She started drawing up her plans and contacted the parks department in September, began painting in early November, and gave her senior project presentation on Dec. 14. She said it went very well, and “the entire room was crying by the end of it.”
Hoovler expressed gratitude for the people who spoke to her about the mural, as well as those who simply stopped to look. She also thanked Sherwin-Williams for donating blue primer paint for her background.
“I’m also just very thankful to everybody who helped,” she said. “I don’t know how to put it into words.”
