Perspectives from the Park: An Artist Collective

Carolyn Lewis is a mixed media artist whose work centers on storytelling through richly layered surfaces. Using vintage textiles, collage elements, and acrylic paint on canvas, she builds compositions that reflect themes of healing, connection, and community. Art has long been a therapeutic practice for Carolyn, both personally and professionally, and this influence continues to shape her creative process. Her work invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and find meaning within texture, history, and color.

Carolyn Lewis lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. She previously worked as an art therapist at Children’s Hospital in Chicago, where she witnessed firsthand the power of art to support healing and emotional expression. In 2020, she founded St. Louis’s first Free Little Art Gallery, creating an accessible space for creativity and community engagement. Carolyn was also honored to be selected as one of 28 artists for the St. Louis Mural Project, bringing large-scale, colorful works to neighborhoods across the city. Her mural can be found across from the Das Bevo windmill on Gravois Avenue. When not working in her Maplewood studio, Carolyn travels nationwide exhibiting her work at fine art shows. She is married and the proud mother of two children, along with three spirited pups.

The Arch is for Everyone is an illustration by Arthur Santoro. This digital illustration is saturated in multiple orange hues counterbalanced beautifully with dark gray. The Arch is the focal point, but it is surrounded by local flora and fauna found throughout the park grounds, including London Plane Trees, robins, and prairie wildflowers. Emphasizing that the Arch is for everyone, the surrounding individuals are all diverse in age, race, orientation, and ability.     

For You & Those Who Live Through You is a collage by Bee de Carona. This digital collage is crafted from disassembled photos that Bee has taken. These layered photos of flowers, shells, irises, and butterflies are used to honor those who paved the path for us and to remember those we lost while working toward a brighter St. Louis. Anchoring this piece is the Arch, which holds space for both the known and uncelebrated narratives of those who spent their lives doing the work needed to strengthen our city by reframing how we define, build, and protect our community.

Afternoon at the Arch is a relief print by Julie Barbeau. This beautiful black and white print depicts an imagined view of the Arch with park visitors lounging about and enjoying the grounds. Surrounded by London Plane Trees, the Arch towers above them. Inspired by Medieval tapestries, Julie weaves the past and the present together, allowing the viewer to create their own stories about the figures.

A Beautiful Day at the Arch is an illustration by Mark Hurd. This color-drenched digital illustration is an imagined view of the Old Courthouse and the Arch. The viewer is drawn up the rainbow steps, through the Arch, and on through to the Old Courthouse. By taking photos and reducing them to their simplest form and color, Mark creates an impressionist work that vibrates with energy and striking hues.

The Arch is for Everyone is a digitized oil painting by Michael Anderson. Michael depicts the Arch and Old Courthouse from the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, offering a unique perspective that draws the viewer into the park grounds. Inspired by the thousands of children that come to the Arch each year, the subjects of his painting point the way to a brighter and more just future.