Public Art Series & Process

Where Stories Take Flight

This body of work honors imagination, education, and intergenerational storytelling. The artwork draws from the cultural richness of the surrounding community, weaving together land, water, animals, and books as symbols of protection, curiosity, and shared knowledge. Each piece is rooted in place, memory, and hope for future generations.

Portrait of Imagination

22k Gold, Silver, Varigated Red & Green and Copper Metal Leaf
Aryclic Paint
Peal Ex
Wood Canvas
Width 36”
Height 48”
Depth 1.5”
Request Pricing through email.

It is a celebration of cultural identity, storytelling, and the boundless landscapes of the mind. Every material and color in the piece was chosen with intention, beginning with Lena’s skin rendered in copper. The warm metallic surface reflects the depth and radiance of Hispanic skin tones, grounding the portrait in heritage, strength, and lived experience.

She is draped in silver, a nod to elegance, resilience, and the historical period she represents. Silver becomes both armor and adornment, honoring dignity while remaining luminous and contemporary. Her hair is gilded with variegated metal leaf, shifting between tones as the light changes, acknowledging that hair, like identity, is never one color, but a living surface shaped by movement, time, and perspective.

From an open book layered in 22k gold leaf, animals emerge as embodiments of imagination and cultural lineage. A blue iridescent mist surrounds the animals as they rise from the rainbow-variegated, gold-leafed book, softening the edges between reality and imagination. The shimmer suggests that these visions are not illusions, but extensions of thought, culture, and possibility. A jaguar rises as a symbol of the forests of the Mexican jungle, representing ancestral strength and guardianship. Monarch butterflies float through the composition as living bridges between Mexico and the United States, reflecting Lena’s recognition of both places as home and the continuous migration of identity across borders.

Sea creatures appear as figures of imagination within a landlocked state. In Colorado, the ocean exists only through stories, books, and dreams. The whale takes this idea further, leaving the water entirely to swim through the clouds, transforming the sky into an ocean of possibility and reminding us that imagination is not bound by geography. Knowledge allows the impossible to feel natural.

Behind the figures is a landscape of Westminster, Colorado, facing the foothills, anchoring the dreamscape in a real and familiar place. Reservoirs and creeks line the foreground, while a river of gold flows through the composition, referencing Colorado’s mining history and Mexico’s folklore, where gold carries meaning beyond wealth, symbolizing transformation, survival, and spirit.

Together, the elements of Portrait of Imagination weave a story of identity, culture, and limitless possibility, grounding Lena Archuleta in the landscape of Westminster and the Colorado foothills while allowing her imagination to transcend place. Through carefully chosen metals, symbolic animals, and a gilded book that releases creatures into sky and land, the painting honors heritage, memory, and storytelling, where history, dream, and self are inseparably connected.

See the shimmer

These close-up views reveal how metal leaf interacts with light and movement.
As the camera shifts, reflective surfaces activate, changing color, depth, and intensity.

This intentional use of material mirrors the learning process itself, layered, evolving, and responsive.
The artwork encourages viewers to slow down, observe closely, and discover how imagination unfolds through small details.

Where Dreams Begin

22k Gold, Silver, Varigated Red & Green and Copper Metal Leaf
Aryclic Paint
Peal Ex
Wood Canvas
Width 36”
Height 48”
Depth 1.5”
Request Pricing through email.

Together, the elements of this painting capture a quiet moment of reflection, where a young mountain lion takes an uninterrupted bubble bath high on a foothills ridge overlooking the Colorado mountains at sunset. In this stillness, the cub drifts between thoughts of the present, memories of the world around him, and playful imaginings of what he might become.

Floating above him, dream bubbles reveal his inner world. In one, he envisions himself grown, strong, and confident like his mother, standing at the edge of a valley stream in Golden Gate Canyon State Park, where the warm lines of sunset blend into daylight within the bubble.

At the center, a butterfly cut from thin copper sheet metal and flamed by torch glows with rainbow hues against a soft blue sky, its wispy clouds echoing the painted sunset behind it, symbolizing the cub’s belief that one day he might fly.

In the final bubble, a fish swims low in a clear creek, reflecting his wish to move through water with the same ease and grace. Grounded in childhood ritual, bath time, storytelling, and imagination, this painting speaks to all ages, reminding us of where dreaming begins, in moments of safety, curiosity, and wonder.

Visualize Rainbow Copper

At the top of the canvas, dream bubbles drift upward, revealing the lion’s inner world, where thin copper sheet animal forms are pressed into the surface and the subtle ripples created by that pressure move with the light as the camera shifts back and forth.
Each vision forms freely, animals, movement, and possibility floating without edges or limits.

The 22k gold leaf within the bubbles is applied seamlessly, leaving no visible joins.
Light moves uninterrupted across the surface, allowing the dreams to feel whole, continuous, and alive as they respond to movement.

As the eye travels downward, imagination settles into form.
The young lion emerges grounded and present, held in a quiet moment of play and rest.
What begins as a dream becomes embodied, reflecting how inner worlds shape who we grow into.

22k Gold, Silver, Varigated Red & Green and Copper Metal Leaf
Aryclic Paint
Peal Ex
Wood Canvas
Width 36”
Height 48”
Depth 1.5”
Request Pricing through email.

It presents a moment of silent understanding between a woman and a bear, their faces close, meeting eye to eye in a shared language beyond words. Neither dominates the other. Instead, they exist in balance, acknowledging mutual respect, trust, and protection. The bear stands as a guardian of the natural world, while the woman represents humanity’s responsibility to listen, learn, and care for the land rather than conquer it. Behind them, the landscape unfolds in layered color and water, suggesting time, memory, and the rhythms of nature that connect all living beings.

Her hair is rendered in silver leaf, chosen intentionally to represent an ageless figure. Though her face is youthful, the silver suggests wisdom accumulated over time, a visual metaphor for how knowledge is gained through reading, learning, and lived experience. She embodies the idea that a woman can carry the insight of generations regardless of age, that wisdom is not defined by years alone but by curiosity and openness to growth. The silver catches the light differently from every angle, reinforcing the idea that knowledge evolves, shifts, and deepens as one continues to learn.

The bear’s form incorporates layered textures and metallic elements, echoing the land itself and reinforcing its role as a timeless guardian. Together, the figures create a quiet but powerful narrative about protection, wisdom, and mutual respect. The Quiet Guardian invites viewers to pause, listen, and reflect on their own relationship with nature, knowledge, and the responsibility we all share in caring for the world around us.

The Quiet Guardian

Silver to Gold to Copper

This video captures a moment of stillness between human and animal, a shared gaze that speaks to trust, reflection, and kinship. As the camera moves, layered paint, metal leaf, and hand-drawn line shift subtly with the light, revealing texture and depth that change from every angle.

The bear and the young woman face one another as equals, connected through land, water, and sky. The surface holds quiet movement, ripples in the background echo the rhythm of breath, while metallic passages catch light and soften again. The work invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and consider the bond between inner strength, protection, and understanding across generations.