ART BRIEFS

Upper School PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

In Rachel Dawson’s Intro to Painting class, upper school students produced close studies of objects. For this still-life painting project, they meticulously rendered three objects that represented something from their past, present, and future.

Upper School IT, THESE, THOSE

Students in Intro to Drawing created detailed object-based drawings for an assignment art teacher Danielle Lawrence calls “It, These, and Those.” The assignment invited students to explore the relationship they have with an object or objects, or that society might have. They explored questions including, “How does an object get fetishsized in our society?” “How do we use objects as value?” and “What class symbolisms are apparent in some objects?”

“A lot of people did commentary on materialism and consumerism,” Danielle shared. “You’ll see people who are interested in drawing fancy bags or Starbucks cups as they were thinking about consumption.”

Lower School SETTING THE SCENE

In second grade, students explored the composition of landscapes with water-resistant versus water-soluble pastels and watercolor. Making individual choices about how to use frames with landscapes, students then used different-sized frames to isolate a portion of their landscape and replicate in another version.

Lower School HORIZON, FRAME, CONTRAST

First and third graders studied the artist Agnes Pelton, an ancestor of first grader Chloe and third grader Jude S. Their grandmother, Nyna Dolby, a family and art historian of Pelton, visited the classes to share an in-depth history on her life and work, including images of how Pelton used her sketchbooks to develop her ideas and artworks.

Students developed their own compositions through an iterative sketchbook process and explored some of the formal elements that appear in Pelton’s work: horizon, frame, and contrast. Pelton often accompanied her paintings with poems, a practice that students also explored.

The classes discussed how artists can make the invisible visible, the power of imagination, and that in the etymology of “inspiration” is spirit and respire. So, art teacher Helen Wicks suggests, when looking for inspiration, take a moment and breathe!

PERFORMING ARTS