Nearly a decade ago Powell High School’s art students took on the final frontier — now they’re back, once again exploring what artistic inspiration they can gather from the great expanse. 

The class has been hard at work adding to the breakout space at Powell High that already houses a shuttle, satellite and 360 degree mural.

Once art teacher Jim Gilman and the class figured out their “basic ideas” — including a moon, a lunar lander and Apollo 11 and 13 references — it became fun for the class to play around with, he explained,  while occasionally turning to discuss with two students what their airbrush work should look like before raising them up on a scissor lift.

The lunar lander will be one-third scale and hover above the moon, Gilman explained.

They’ve begun converting one of the area’s beams into a launch tower where SpaceX will be launching a Falcon Heavy (a lift launch vehicle) with a Boeing X-37, a drone that spends 600 days in space at a time; it’s “kind of crazy,” Gilman said. 

Outside of industry and historical references, Gilman and the class have also decided to embrace science fiction, including an 8-foot model of Battlestar Galactica. They decided to pull elements from Star Trek by adding two Jumpgates and, from the 1994 Kurt Russell classic, of the same name, a Stargate. Of course, they couldn’t leave out director Stanley Kubrick, so on the door is a small mural from a scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Some of the paint work will be done with iridescent paint which will play well with the black lights they are going to install.

“I think the kids latch onto those [pop culture references] a little bit, it’s kind of fun to see that … It’s been fun to watch, our Stargate down there is pretty cool, there’s going be fun with lights and stuff like that,” Gilman said.

For him the aspect of the project that is the most fun is problem solving with his students, he said.

Junior Taylor Iverson has worked on some of the art programs and other large scale projects, she said, but has only worked on renovating past displays like the shuttle.

“I love it, because we also always leave the dates of when they did all the other ones,” she said.

As Iverson took a break from carefully painting light speed lines on a classroom window, she added, “It kind of just shows over the school years not just how [Gilman’s] teaching progressed but how we also progress.”

Iverson jumps around to different aspects of the art projects throughout the year, she said, and while she does do some paintings she also likes building and has her eye on the launch tower next. 

Elsewhere, junior Cambree Dicks is on the floor adding some moon-like features to a quarter-sphere frame. Dicks has helped map out some of the moon’s “ribs,” helped with the stringers, concept sketching and with adding boarding to the frame.

“The moon has so much detail to it, big details and little details,” Dicks said. “And I love doing everything [involving] detail work, but you have to get a solid foundation down first.”

She added that following her work on the moon she has been looking at painting some of the details in the breakout.

Dicks enjoys working on the projects in part because of the teamwork, time and problem solving involved and, “how it can go from pieces of wood and design board and a couple nails and screws to the moon and Apollo 13.”

As Dicks returns to work putting some finishing touches on their pocket-sized moon for the day, Iverson packs up her paints and Gilman and his students can be heard cleaning up the workshop — there’s work to be done yet.