Island resident Terry Pottmeyer has a dedication to art, youth and helping younger generations reach their potential. For that dedication she was honored as one of Pi Beta Kappa’s six Pathfinder award recipients for 2009. The honor society’s award is given to those who have helped others learn about new worlds around them.

Through her work as the executive director for ArtWorks, Pottmeyer helps youth in the Seattle area create a permanent piece of art for the larger community. The program’s participants are mainly at-risk youth sent to the program from the King County juvenile system, but others get involved via the specific after-school programs which ArtWorks runs, and still others drop by to gain volunteer hours. She said that for many involved, it is their first employment experience, so the program also works to provide interviewing skills, among others, which will help in future job hunts.

“It’s a real honor,” she said of earning the award. “I really like the imagery of the key and the hand pointing the way. It’s showing them there are healthy choices out there.”

ArtWorks began 14 years ago as a way to clean up the bus corridor in the Sodo district of Seattle. Pottmeyer said there were long-standing graffiti and litter issues, but that changed after the community received a grant from the Department of Neighborhoods and the city of Seattle to create a community mural. From there, ArtWorks was born, working with youth who otherwise would not have the ability or opportunity to create such projects, while also earning a little cash for their efforts.

“It’s a powerful thing, the creative self-expression aspect,” said Pottmeyer. “It’s life changing for them to see what’s created.” Last summer, ArtWorks had 150 kids take part in the after-school and girls’ programs alone.

Hundreds of murals and projects with specific schools have been done by the nonprofit organization, for which Pottmeyer is the only full-time staff member. A member of the ArtWorks team since 2007, Pottmeyer said working for the organization was just the next step in a natural culmination of her work with youth and the community.

“I’ve always done youth-related work. As my kids got older, I could define my community broader,” she said. After years of volunteering in the Mercer Island community and helping out with her children’s various organizations, something she is still heavily involved with, taking the next step only made sense.

Through that next step, Pottmeyer has seen the impact of the program on youth, specifically learning about themselves and realizing they have the skills to do things they never imagined. She said in one exit survey that a student realized he would come to work angry, but discovered working was a good distraction and helped him become calmer, a lesson that he will be able to carry forward.

“It’s really quite profound,” she said of the surveys. “They see the changes in themselves. Many are surprised because they realize they have these skills they didn’t think they had.” All program graduates receive sketch books and Pottmeyer said many of them carry the books everywhere, exploring a side of their creativity that they had not previously known.

Murals and other projects are designed mostly by contracted artists, but occasionally ArtWorks will get a grant allowing students to design one. The artists create miniature panels of each design, then interns mix paint to create color palettes matching the artist’s drawings. Pottmeyer said the studio has only primary colors on hand, so a majority of the colors are mixed specifically for each project. Once paint has been matched and mixed, the students in the program paint practice versions onto boards in the studio before the real work is projected via transparencies onto the actual mural location.

Pottmeyer said a majority of the mural painting takes place during the summer when the weather is better, but that means projecting on walls only works at night, so often crews are out at strange times working to get the drawings on the wall. The organization is preparing for the summer months of painting and working on a variety of projects, including a continuation of a variety of South Lake Union murals depicting historical events. The latest, Pottmeyer said, is of a frozen January scene representing when South Lake Union froze.

Various ArtWorks murals can be seen throughout the community; many are located along the light rail and bus corridor in Sodo. For more information about ArtWorks, visit www.urbanartworks.org.

Other 2009 Pathfinder honorees include Bob Bridge, owner of Renton Toyota, who hires University of Washington students to tutor Renton High School math students; Lisa Dallas, the principal of Adna Elementary School, who helped students create a book of their memories from the 2007 Lewis County flood; Elliott Wolf, publisher with Peanut Butter Publishing, who helped raise funds to publish the Adna Elementary book, “This Flood Happened”; Quincy Jones, renowned jazz artist and Garfield High School graduate; and Joe Tice, director of the Tukwila Food Pantry, who helps young volunteers learn about civics and public speaking.