Sculpture marks 25 years since Columbine school shooting

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A quarter of a century after the Columbine High School shooting, an artist whose sculpture is featured in ArtPrize says she aims to highlight the efforts to reduce school violence amid what she calls a “lack of progress.”

On April 20, 1999, 12 students and one teacher were killed in a shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. More than 20 people were injured.

“This year, 2024, is the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting,” Livonia-based artist Samantha Lewis told News 8. “That number of 25 years hit me, because I remember when that happened and it certainly doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. There was, of course, school violence before that happened, but in terms of my memory … that one really stood out to me as kind of the changing point of what started a lot more school lockdowns and a lot more concerns about safety in school.”

The problem has “snowballed” since then, she said.

“It’s not as unique anymore. At that time, it was something that everybody kind of remembers where they were and it’s really cemented in their memory,” Lewis said. “Now, there’s so many school shootings that you really don’t even remember the names in particular.”

She was inspired to create 25 years of thoughts and prayers , a sculpture being displayed at Courage & Soar for ArtPrize.

It’s Lewis’ 10th year participating in the Grand Rapids art competition. This year, the artist said she’s going beyond making pieces for her own joy.

“I have a platform where it feels like I have a responsibility to try and help give people a broader perspective,” she said.

Her sculpture 25 years of thoughts and prayers aims to capture a “duality of sorts.”

“Between all the efforts that are trying to make a difference for other kids versus the lack of progress,” Lewis explained. “Because when you step back and say, ‘Wow, it’s been 25 years’ — why haven’t we done something more impactful?”

The artist hopes to shine a spotlight on the efforts of groups like Sandy Hook Promise, which was founded by family members of people who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

“They’re not coming at it from a perspective only of ‘Hey, my family was victimized by this’ and just like kind of crawling in a hole and not wanting to talk to anybody,” Lewis said. “They’re trying to make it better for other families as well.”

The sculpture is centered around three granite boulders , which represent the effort to “build something better.” They are irregularly sized and stacked in such a way that they appear precarious. That’s intentional.

“Every time we make progress or it seems like we make progress, it seems very unsteady from a legislation and a legal perspective,” Lewis said.

A hand made of bullet shells reaches up from what appears to be a pool of blood, trying to knock down the boulders.

“So, it’s that back-and-forth of, ‘OK, we’re trying to be better but this violence keeps attempting to drag us back,'” Lewis said. “So that push-and-pull mentality.”

The boulders are surrounded by what appears to be a tornado.

“Something is always happening,” the artist explained. “It’s hard to be still and make forward progress if you have this sort of swirling of messaging around it.”

But being still is precisely the goal of 25 years of thoughts and prayers.

“We’re in such an entrenched, like, ‘I don’t want to listen to anything other than my own views’ mindset that I just want to create that pause to give people the opportunity to think about something a little different than they’ve thought about it so far,” Lewis said.

The sculpture is meant to be a “meditation.”

“I don’t know that I’m intending to drive massive change with it,” Lewis said. “But you can get massive change when you have the brain space to have that pause and think about some of the mechanics behind these larger issues that take more than one person or a couple people to accomplish.”

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