Murals Make A Masterpiece Of Interstate-90 Underpass

Rene Thompson, a student teacher at St. Paschal’s School, gave her daughters and a friend a lifelike lesson in the works of two great artists last week.

On Saturday, she took them to the Altamont Street underpass beneath Interstate 90, where people from around Spokane painted a huge mural on the concrete walls.

Thompson and the girls painted replicas of the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh’s “Self Portrait in a Straw Hat.”

She said they were studying the two great masters and their works in art class at the Catholic school in the Spokane Valley.

The public was invited to help decorate the underpass in a project sponsored by the Spokane Arts Commission and the East Central Community Center.

The project was the third mural painting sponsored by the arts commission, which calls the events the “People’s Gallery.”

Thompson said when she heard about the event she talked her daughters, Stephanie and Catie, and a friend, Nicole Bettinger, into going.

“We had to do the Mona Lisa,” Thompson said.

They brought printed copies of the two paintings to guide them. What they ended up with looks surprisingly similar to the real works.

Thompson, who is studying to become a teacher through Eastern Washington University, said the girls learned in class a possible explanation for Mona Lisa’s unusual smile.

Tooth infections were common during the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe, and they speculated that Mona Lisa may have lost her teeth and was not willing to smile widely, Thompson said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo