A local Starbucks is currently hanging LZ student art on their wall and will continue to do so for several months.

Parents and teachers prompted Marcus Lyles, Starbucks store manager, with the idea of putting student art on the wall, according to Wyatt Sikora, Starbucks shift manager. Starbucks has received art from all grade levels in the district. The art ranges from paintings to photographs to paintings based off of drawings.

Stephanie Nikolas, senior, who took a crisp, dark photo of a businessman riding up an escalator, said she was given an assignment in her digital photography studio class, a photography course offered at the high school, where she had to pick an emotion, and convey the emotion through a color. She named her piece “Corporate.”

Nikolas balanced the colors in the photo so that it was  dark and in high contrast, associating the businessman and the color black with the feeling of power. Nikolas says she takes upwards of 100 photos a day and simply chose one that fit. She sat at the top of an escalator, took photos, and went with what worked.

“Usually, when I get assignments for photo class, I don’t plan them out. I just kind of take the pictures I normally would, and then hope they fit the criteria,” Nikolas said.

Melissa Morrissey, senior, created a painting called “Blind Entity.” Her painting depicts an octopus without eyes. Morrissey said the piece represents impairments and explained it is intended to show how physical and mental impairments can occur in anyone without rhyme or reason and completely by chance.

Morrissey, like Nikolas, simply started carrying out ideas and worked with whatever she got until it took form.

“I just started doodling,” Morrissey said. “I [made] a starfish and put paint on it, then started smearing [paint] all over the paper. It turned into the shape of an octopus so I went with it.”

Morrissey says she primarily paints underwater scenes, and with watercolor paint, which she says allows her to “go with the flow.” Like Nikolas, Morrissey enjoys starting with arbitrary ideas, forming them into wonderful art in a yielding and gentle way.

The art wall can be viewed at the Lake Zurich Starbucks on 195 Rand Road, across the street from Walker Brothers and Costco.  The arrt is cycled every few weeks.