High school students from Boulder’s Watershed School took inspiration from the lives of seniors to create oil paintings for their Painting and Perception class.

Chris Carithers, the art teacher at the experiential private school, partnered with Boulder’s Brookdale Meridian senior living community for the class project. The 14 students in the class worked with a senior or senior couple at Brookdale, interviewing them in November to learn about their most meaningful memories, favorite decades and experiences that brought them the most joy.

The students then used the seniors’ stories to decide on a subject for their paintings. Some used a photo from the seniors as the basis for the painting, while others looked online to find images of a Nebraska farm, German lighthouse and a Bond Minicar to match cherished memories.

After sharing how they came up with the paintings, the students gifted them to the seniors this week.

“Painting this made me feel like I’m doing something bigger than myself,” student Calvin Boal said as he presented a painting of the countryside in the Ukraine to his senior partner. “I hope it brings you as much joy as it did to me.”

Carithers, who came up with the project, said art can connect people and help them see each other’s humanity.

“I like to look for opportunities where students can see that they don’t have to wait until after they get out of school to make a contribution, no matter how large or small that contribution might be,” he said. “In this case, the contribution was a connection and gifting the painting.”

He said students often produce their best work when it’s for an authentic audience. These students, he said, pushed themselves to paint unfamiliar subjects, including landscapes, portraits and animals, so they could best reflect the senior’s lives.

He added there’s something special about intergenerational connections.

“You see a softness in teenagers come out when they’re with the older generation, while the senior residents don’t often get to see young people and interact with them,” he said.

He worked with Brookdale resident program manager Ann Marquis, who said the participating seniors were brave to “put themselves out there with a total stranger and trust they would do something with that kindly.”

While both groups were nervous at the start of the project, she said, those nerves quickly dissipated.

“It wasn’t teenagers and elderly, it was people talking,” she said. “It has been an amazing process.”

McCall Sherman, a senior at Watershed, waffled about what to paint after listening to a resident couple share their memories of their children and the time they spent at a cabin in Montana. She settled on recreating a photo of their three children.

“A window back into their life was my goal,” she said.

She said she’s painted since she was a child and found using oil paints almost felt like cheating because they were so easy to blend and use to create detail. She said knowing her work was going out into the world motivated her to “pour my heart into it.”

“It was one of the more special things I have gotten to do in high school,” she told the couple as she gave them the painting. “Thank you for sharing your life with me.”

Freshman Izzy Rhodes-Wolin painted a still life using elements from the story of how the resident couple she worked with met, which involved a cantaloupe, a pot of meat sauce and a book.

“Getting to know their stories was a joyful experience,” she said.Resident Jesse Kadel, who was partnered with Watershed student Xander Pate, shared his love for nature photography and orchids. So Xander painted a colorful slipper orchid based on a photograph the 92-year-old had showed him.

“I had no idea what this would be when I said I would participate,” Kadel said. “I thought, ‘what am I getting into.’ But it was a delight. We got to know the kids, and we got to know ourselves, too.”