06/06/2006
Schools showcase next generation of artists
By: Jessica Selby , Daily Times

Children's artwork is no longer just being hung on the family refrigerator. In recent years, there has been an increase in the practice of displaying student artwork publicly.
Across the valley, elementary and middle schools are all doing it. Art teachers are transforming their schools' foyers and hallways into galleries and using students' artwork to decorate the walls.
Michelle Aguiar, the art teacher at Christ the Redeemer Academy, a Catholic School in West Warwick, held her school's annual art show last week on Tuesday evening. Meghann Smith, the art teacher at Tiogue Elementary School in Coventry, held her school's exhibition last Wednesday and Scarlett St. Martin, the music teacher at Washington Oak Elementary School in Coventry, coordinated her school's art show and music concert on the same night last week.
"I think it's very important to allow parents and administration the opportunity to come in to the school and see what it is that our students are doing in the art department because, unfortunately, the arts are always the first thing to get cut when it comes to funding," said Aguiar. "Never mind how nice the presentation is when all the students' artwork is put together in a gallery format, this type of presentation gives people a new perspective into art. It allows them to see outside the box and realize that we are teaching our students concepts that they can use in their life - graphic design, computer animation, the list goes on."
Students at Christ the Redeemer Academy had various types of art on display for guests to view. Each student submitted a clay tile, some created works of art using acrylic paint, some had drawings in the show and others submitted what Aguiar calls "half-and-half" pictures. Half-and-half pictures, Aguiar explained, are images that are halfway completed. The students are required to complete the half of the image that is blank.
At Tiogue School one night later, the hallways were lined with bright colors, images of animals and sporting events. Inside the cafeteria there were also clay pieces, masks and other objects that the students had created. Smith said she allowed each of the students at her school to select one piece of their artwork from their portfolio to have on display in the gallery exhibit and then clustered them by classrooms.
Skyla Morton, a 7-year-old at Tiogue School, who browsed the hallways of the school on art night with her mother, Sayward Brandenburger, said she was very excited about the opportunity to have her artwork on display. When her teacher asked her what she wanted to have in the show, she said she immediately chose her still-life painting. Smith had fixed a variety of fruit on a table at the front of the classroom amidst a few other inanimate objects and asked the students to recreate what they saw on paper using Payons. Payons, Smith explained, are a cross between crayons and paint. Using them like crayons, you color first and then add water to the colors on the paper to make paint, Smith said.
"I think it is important to encourage arts to the public in general but, with a school-wide presentation like this, I feel that it is a very effective way of giving the students' parents, their relatives and the school's administration time to absorb how important what we do in the art department is for the student's development," Smith said. "It helps with their coordination, their understanding of colors and we often incorporate history. There is a lesson in everything that we do and I think it is important that that is known."
The arts night at Washington Oak School, St. Martin said, "went very well." It was well attended and well received, she said.
"Everyone liked this format better I think," she said. "It was nice to collaborate together with the school art teacher on the date so that people were able to focus on the arts as a group on one night."
"People are busy and, oftentimes, it's hard for parents to come to the school at night, so this allowed them the opportunity to come once and see both the arts that their kids are creating as well as the music that they are making," St. Martin said.
St. Martin selected the Lion King as a school-wide theme for the art show this year. Everything that was presented on that evening was somehow, St. Martin said, related to that theme. There were a variety of animals that the students had created in different mediums in their art classes, all around the same theme, placed at various locations around the school and all of the music that the students presented in the concert in the gym was Lion King-related.
"I recently saw the Lion King at the PPAC and thought it would make a theme for us to use for our school-wide art show," St. Martin said. "I've always had an art show for parents to come in and see their child's work on display. It's a great way for the kids to display how much they have progressed throughout the year."
Almost all of the schools in both Coventry and West Warwick hold art nights now.
It is, Smith said, a steadily growing trend.