Arts at Collegiate

ARTS ARTS

Art gives us a space to ruminate, a place to explore our inner lives and our relationship to the world. For the arts department at Collegiate School, imparting formal skills of the craft is intended to give our Cougars the technologies necessary to create that space of contemplation — one where they can think about complex sensations that allow them to discover themselves, their peers and their community.

Art in Motion

Students in the Lower School are using a special technology to bring their paintings to life.

Any work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, and so, in the manner of art making, the process is something like conjuring a breath, capturing the motion of a river or the way wind blows through a tree branch. With careful consideration to the formal elements of a painting, each brushstroke becomes a significant part of the world. Our 1st Grade students, with guidance from Lower School Art Teacher Lisa Anderson, have been participating in this practice of world making, primarily through landscape paintings. Thinking about the technical elements of foreground and background, depth and horizon lines, texture and tone, students began creating pastoral scenes of autumn. “The intention of the landscape paintings were to get students to think about space and how to create the illusion of depth and distance,” explains Mrs. Anderson. “Students had to think about foreground, middleground and background as well as the mixture of primary and secondary colors to create visual texture.” To add an additional element to the textured reality of the students’ paintings, Mrs. Anderson collaborated with Melanie Gregory, Lower School Instructional Technology Integrator, to animate the paintings. Using Motionleap, an application that allows artists to animate elements of paintings, students were able elevate their creations. The pieces were then uploaded to Motionleap, which allows the students to choose the features in the painting they would like to enliven with motion. A river cutting through a mountainside, for example, can be given an undulant current, and the trees dotting the foreground can shake from a gust of wind. Heather Bruneau, who intends to integrate Motionleap into her own projects with students, says that having to consider the deeper life of a painting in the animation process makes the students connect more with their work. “The program reinforces concepts in their art while also adding another asset to their piece,” she says. “Students are doing that conceptual investigation of their own artworks about what each feature of the piece means, and that makes it more meaningful.” The project, then, becomes a union of art and technology. “I think this is the perfect way to incorporate technology,” Mrs. Anderson says, “because when you have a student that has just learned all these concepts, and now you ask them to add animation to it — it enhances the piece, making it come alive.”

Scan to see more of our 1st Graders’ animated art.

STUDENTS EARN SCHOLASTIC ART AND WRITING AWARDS

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious recognition program for creative students. This year, 27 Collegiate School students earned gold, silver and honorable mention honors in the art and writing categories.

Cate Riley

Kaelyn Crosthwaite Zehma Herring

Diamond Lightfoot Diamond Lightfoot

Grace Hugo Cate Taylor

Izzy Bartels Blake Ingold

Jack Hill

THE FOLLOWING COLLEGIATE STUDENTS RECEIVED HONORS IN 2022

GOLD KEY

Izzy Bartels ’22, ceramics & glass Syd Britt ’25, photography Kaelyn Crosthwaite ’25, drawing & illustration Jack Hill ’22, art portfolio, photography (2) Blake Ingold ’25, photography Diamond Lightfoot ’22, drawing & illustration Will Neuner ’22, photography Cate Riley ’23, painting

SILVER KEY

Alexis Covington ’24, painting Kasey Cross ’22, painting Sydni Denton ’22, flash fiction Molly Hutchison ’23, short story Jack Hill ’22, photography Madeleine Hough ’25, painting Grace Hugo ’22, mixed media Diamond Lightfoot ’22, drawing & illustration Cate Taylor ’25, photography Alexander Trimmingham ’22, mixed media

HONORABLE MENTION

Katherine Becker ’22, short story, mixed media (2) Amanda Tan ’22, critical essay, poetry Maggie Bowman ’23, photography Olivia Brownstein ’24, painting Gabby Chen ’23, ceramics & glass Zehma Herring ’22, sculpture Jack Hill ’22, photography (3) Eva Lareau ’23, photography (3) Ellie Leipheimer ’23, mixed media Diamond Lightfoot ’22, digital art, sculpture Anju Natarajan ’22, mixed media Will Neuner ’22, art portfolio Alexander Trimmingham ’22, mixed media Kate Turnbull ’23, ceramics & glass Lacey Word ’22, ceramics & glass

Honors Art Pop-up Show

Pam Sutherland’s Honors Art class held a one-day pop-up art show at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond in January. Six Seniors — Katherine Becker, Olivia Fairlamb, Zehma Herring, Grace Hugo, Diamond Lightfoot and Alexander Trimmingham — presented three collaborative projects along with independent works. Students also spoke about their work to open the show.

UPPER SCHOOL ENSEMBLE PUTS ON SHOW

The Upper School Small Ensemble concert, played in January, featured the Viridaur String Ensemble, Camerata, Jazz Band and members of the Guitar Ensemble. These groups showcased some of the Upper School’s most dedicated musicians.

Students Shine During Night of Light

There are so many ways Collegiate School students can share their light. The Night of Light showcase, hosted by Studio Two and held by Collegiate, is one such way. In December, 2nd Grade students and their families gathered for the annual Night of Light showcase, where families were able to view the 2nd Grade Shadow Play and had the opportunity to shop students’ artistic creations — with proceeds benefiting JAMS Academy, Studio Two’s partner school in Cameroon.

UPPER SCHOOL WINTER PLAY HIGHLIGHTS THEMES OF CONNECTION

The Honors Theater class presented Love and Information by Caryl Churchill on Friday, Jan. 21 and Saturday, Jan. 22. The show was a blend of over 50 stories that came together to explore passion, relationships and the role varying emotions play in every moment of our lives. Funny, tender, heartbreaking and more, Love and Information demonstrated the importance of connection in the modern world.