Children and Art
In 2019 I had the pleasure of exhibiting my paintings at my local arts council gallery.
The theme was “An Art Teacher’s Visual Memoir.” I meant it to be a remembrance of students and experiences from my 20 years of teaching visual art to students across a range of ages, from kindergarten through eighth grade.
The Dragon In the Library
Inspired by reading “The Hobbit” in Language arts, students worked in groups to create paper mache characters from the book. A five foot long rendition of the dragon Smog lived in the art room for quite a while as students from different 8th grade classes completed it. The process was fascinating to the younger students and illustrated how much fun art class could be.
When the sculpture was completed, Smog lived in the school library for two years before the weight of the paper and the weakness of glue degraded his magnificence. The dumpster became his final resting place.
Second Grade Students Creating Still Life Drawings
Child Projects as Still Life
While color is at the heart of my own work in visual arts, my favorite piece in the show was “Bisque-fired Coil Pots”. It is a painted contour drawing that captures the life and liveliness of a group of fifth-grade coil pot projects awaiting their own color layer. I believe it illustrates what children can do when given direction and information along with the freedom to give form to their own ideas.