Artist depicts imaginary escape

MELROSE - Who hasn't opened a book and embarked on a journey?

Whether it was down a rabbit hole, into outer space, back to a bygone century or into a future one, everybody has been taken on a trip by countless authors, delivered from point A to B through words, just by turning pages.

Samantha Odom is taking young readers in Melrose through a similar journey, only she's using her own personal skills to do so through illustration. Odom, who herself came through the Melrose school system, is an artist who's bringing the journey to life by painting a mural on the elementary school wall.

It depicts a boy and a girl in a summery bucolic setting, reading by a stream before their metaphoric journey transformed them, through their books, not just location-wise but physically. The boy becomes a creature with a crossbow, the girl a fairy riding a snail.

Aside from a mental and visual trip, Odom is hoping the mural also delivers the Kindergarten-through-sixth-grade students on a more important physical voyage, because it ends at the doorway to the school library which she hopes will encourage them to walk inside, grab a book and travel to more distant places.

"It's just kind of like inviting the children down the hallway to come read," Odom said Friday night, talking on the phone while she painted. "It beckons you."

There's even a depository near mural's end where students can donate their old books and take books that others donated, allowing them to embark on new journeys.

A big reason for Odom's involvement was Melrose elementary school teacher Alex Roach. "She is kind of a big part of the library renovation that they're doing here," Odom said, "so the mural is a big part of what they're doing."

Some of the renovation funds stemmed from money raised by the Clovis-Carver Public Library as a result of the August 2017 shooting there. So Odom's mural is some form of positivity indirectly resulting from a horrific tragedy.

"A lot of the money for this project came from that," Odom said. "I just found that out."

After graduating from Melrose High, Odom - née Dodd - majored in Family and Child Science, which was fitting because, using her own words, she was looking for an "MRS degree," as in Mrs., as in eventually becoming a stay-at-home mother.

Odom has certainly accomplished that, with three boys - ages 9, 7 and 2 1/2, and a fourth son en route. "I love being a mom," she said.

While in college Odom took plenty of art classes, though didn't major in it. After college, she owned a mural business in Las Cruces before having children, and since, has operated a business, ladyhike.com, which makes hiking gear designed specifically for women.

Art, though, is in Odom's blood, it's an innate part of her. So in May when she was contacted to work on the mural as an extension of the library renovations, she was excited and eager to help.

"Melrose is forever in me," she said.

"Melrose is a really tight-knit community," she added. "It's just cool because those relationships run deep. I feel like Melrose really gives kids opportunities to make a successful life. You grow up in a community where you really feel you can do it because everyone tells you you can. I've just been reflecting on that myself, how great this community is and how blessed I am to be raised here."

So it was a thrill for Odom to combine her artistic background and love of community to help spur young students' imaginations and their interest in reading, while they're still impressionable and too young to be staring endlessly at the minutiae on their cell phones.

Why not stare at a mural with mythical creatures, a river and a (Melrose) buffalo?

All of the above mural aspects and more took much hard work for Odom and any assistants who offered to help her. As she spoke on the phone Friday, Odom was at 33 hours and counting.

She primed the school wall on Tuesday night and worked on the painting Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, hoping to finish before going away for the weekend. "So I'm basically living here," she said.

For a pursuit well worth it.

"I'm so excited that a piece of my artwork and my creativity is going to be in the hallway of the school that I absolutely love, which is such an honor to me because I think it's going to be here a long time."