ADAM ZANGARI

Students at Lippitt Elementary School put the final touches on a mural right to the side of the entrance of the building recently, officially finishing a beautification project for the school.

Throughout the day, students in Kim Gallman’s art class had gotten to take an up-close and personal look at the mural, with a scavenger hunt of 100 different items within the artwork being the assignment of the day.

Artist Peter Geisser said that the mural was particularly special because of student involvement.

“It’s just one of those wonderful things, this picture,” Geisser said to the students. “You guys told us what you wanted and nobody six months ago knew what this was going to be. And it’s something amazing.”

The school hosted a ceremony at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, which was attended by multiple members of the Warwick School Committee, school administration, and fourth-graders who were in Gallman’s class at the time.

Former principal Martin Susla spoke to the crowd of fourth-graders in Kim Gallman’s art class, whom he hadn’t seen since the last school year. Susla returned to teaching this past summer, and is a first grade teacher at Scott Elementary School.

According to Susla, the work on creating a mural started almost exactly a year ago.

“I had gone to Chicago during Columbus Day of last year, and saw some really cool murals with mosaics and things like that,” he said. “We put together a vision, and we called upon a friend of Mrs. Gallman- Peter.”

The mural was created as part of a grant from the School Building Authority Capital Fund’s ARTS program, according to Warwick Public Schools Director of Federal Grants Paul Heatherton.

Principal Erick Pagan said succeeding Susla and keeping up the culture he built was a good challenge for him as he begins his tenure. Since the mural was built during both of their tenures, both Susla and Pagan have their names on it.

“To inherit that, and also being able to put my name up as well, that’s definitely something special,” Pagan said. “It’s kind of like an inauguration.”

Susla said Geisser, a former teacher with the Rhode Island School of the Deaf, was “gracious and charismatic” throughout the entire process, and it was his work and presence that helped the mural take shape.

The final three pieces were ceremonially put on the wall by the school’s youngest kindergartener, who would prefer to remain nameless, the school’s oldest fifth-grader, Mahogany King, and Assistant Superintendent of Warwick Public Schools Bill McCaffrey.

While Geisser said that he would still have to finish grouting the three final pieces, the wall was, for all intents and purposes, done.

Pagan said that the mural would help build Lippitt’s culture, as well as make it more unique. According to him, Lippitt now has an established “beautification team,” who will also be doing landscaping and additional projects to try to improve Lippitt’s overall look.

Susla was happy to be back on his old stomping grounds, and said Pagan was doing a good job as his successor.

“It’s nice to be able to hand it off to somebody who has a lot of passion for the school,” he said.

Following the ceremony, the fourth-graders present during it returned to class, and more students got to take a look at the new piece of art that graces the front of their school.