Dec 15, 2012 3 min read

WAYNESBURG – At Rolling Meadows Nursing Home, December is a time to celebrate all the good things in life, including, it turns out, ceiling tiles.

“This is the Christmas season for us and we’re in high gear,” activities director Sharon Jeffries said. “It’s party mode every day, so when Mike Lesko called and said the ceiling tiles his students had painted for us were ready to be delivered, that was just the tinsel on the tree.”

Mike Lesko is the high-energy art teacher at Jefferson-Morgan High School who, since he replaced retiring art teacher and noted regional artist Frank Melegra Jr. in 1992, has nurtured creativity in his students with a strong elective course that offers painting, printing, raku fired pottery and even a chance to be remembered after graduation with an individually painted ceiling tile.

But perhaps the best lesson Lesko teaches is the art of giving.

“Students who are at a higher level in art get to paint a tile for the art room to be put on display as part of our permanent collection,” Lesko said. “Each year, we do a community project that involves art and the students decide what it will be. This year, someone asked if we could paint ceiling tiles and put them in other places,” he said.

“I read about two older ladies who had been commissioned to do art for a hospital emergency room to help people feel more comfortable, so we decided to do them for a nursing home or rehabilitation center and Rolling Meadows said yes. We made a list that asked the residents questions about what their favorite color was, where they would like to visit, things they really like and the staff helped fill them out.”

The students chose a person from the 20 lists that were returned, and threw themselves into creating an image that incorporated those favorite things. Each tile is ready to be framed by the home’s maintenance staff and attached to the ceiling above beds or to the wall per individual wishes.

“When the patient leaves Rolling Meadows they or their family will receive the tile,” Lesko said.

The vanload of art arrived in the nursing home parking lot Thursday afternoon. Students unloaded their tiles, then streamed into the nursing home lobby with the colorful iconic images the residents had ordered up – a cross on a hill, a fine little white church, birds singing on flowered branches, Terry Bradshaw in full regalia for Hershel Rutan, the Eiffel Tower for Margurite White, grinning goats for Mary Alice Mankey.

Even though they were expected, the impromptu art show was a startlingly beautiful sight that caused passersby to stop, stare and grin as it was paraded through the garden, past the cluster of wheelchairs in the big communal hallway and then into the dining room where the frailest residents awaited their tiles and a chance to meet the artists.

Then it was another parade down halls and up stairs until the last tile was delivered to the last room and the students piled into the parking lot for the ride back to school.

Mission accomplished. Art, freely given, is bringing comfort and joy to Rolling Meadows, just in time for Christmas.