(TIGARD) — Ever since she was young, Ryan Lomber has found solace in her artwork.

She found it a safe way to express herself, especially navigating the isolation and national political unrest after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that gripped the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the time, Lomber, a Bull Mountain resident who is now a senior at Valley Catholic High School, was attending Twality Middle School.

“I started doing my artwork in middle school, and it was actually just one canvas that I did initially, and it had a bunch of messages on it like ‘Black Lives Matter,’ ‘Love is love,’ ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights,’ stuff like that. My middle school teacher saw it, and she really liked the artwork that I had made, and she thought it would be cool if I was able to do a canvas that represented each message,” Lomber recalled.

Initially, she had nine canvases, a number that has since increased to 12.

Lomber said she has focused on having her inclusive artwork shared in classrooms “because I want to help cultivate an environment where every child feels like they belong and they’re encouraged to grow in their truth in that environment so that they can just become their truest selves.”

When Lomber arrived at Valley Catholic High School, began by pursuing the creation of a school “unity board,” which would recognize marginalized groups at the school. While there were some initial glitches — some of it pertaining to the messages she would be allowed to post — she eventually was granted permission to create the bulletin board.

As a result, Lomber said she was grateful for the experience “because I learned so much about just how religion and politics mixes, and all that stuff, and it was definitely a big learning curve for me, because it was not what I was used to at all,” she said.

The unity board has remained up since her sophomore year, and is updated each month to focus on different topics that have included Black History Month and Women’s History Month.

Her artwork has even reached the office of Ben Bowman, the Tigard Democrat from House District 25 who also serves as Oregon House Majority Leader. Bowman praised her in a letter of recommendation when Lomber was applying for colleges. The Oregon representative also gave her kudos for reaching a $10,000 goal of raising money for her “In This Classroom” series of canvases where she sold prints to raise money for Packed with Pride. The organization is a Tigard-Tualatin School District food box program that Bowman and others founded during the pandemic.

“Ryan exemplifies an extraordinary blend of kindness, dedication, and vision in every project she undertakes, leaving a profound, positive impact on both her peers and mentors,” Bowman wrote in his letter. “Her initiative to create artwork that promotes inclusion and acceptance is a powerful testament to her commitment to meaningful change in her community.”

Her artwork was also highlighted at a recent Tigard-Tualatin school board meeting.

When Lomber is not painting, she’s playing tennis and is captain of Valley Catholic’s 42-member girls team.

“Most of them, though, have never played tennis before, which is honestly so, so fun because before, I was kind of hard on myself, but I’ve learned so much from them,” she said.

Next year, Lomber plans on attending the University of Oregon’s Honors College and study law with plans to become an immigration lawyer. Having had a former boyfriend who is an immigrant and watching the daily news about immigration issues in the current administration has given her a close up look at how people in the immigration system are often treated.

“My dream would be to be on the Supreme Court or be a judge,” she said.Art provides outlet for Valley Catholic senior