Ives Gallery Photo
Untitled mixed media by Paola Gutierrez, 10th grade, Riverside Educational Academy
Do you want to see what Paul Klee means to third-graders at the Bishop Woods School? Or what Picasso means to kids at the Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy? Or what students learned of the meditative lines of Agnes Martin at the Columbus Family Academy in Fair Haven?
Go to the Ives Gallery, in the downstairs of the main library, where New Haven art teachers and their students have mounted an impressive snapshot of visual art achievement citywide through the schools’ first marking period this year.
There Supervisor of Performing and Visual Arts Ellen Maust has assembled about 300 art works in mixed media done by kids from the beginning grades through high school in a show titled “New Haven Creates: Work by New Haven Public School Students.”
About 30 of the system’s 80 visual art teachers submitted works reflecting assignments the kids have done, like producing cityscapes after studying line, shape, and color in the work of Swiss-German artist Paul Klee. That was one of the offerings from third-graders at Bishop Woods Architecture and Design Magnet School.
The kids there certainly studied well; third-grader Amarae Rosario’s optimistic skyline beneath a happy sun was evidence. I for one would like to live in the city Amarae imagined and visually built.
Nearby, on one of the several movable panels on which the artworks were displayed, were the results of a study by sixth-graders at Roberto Clemente of “Weeping Woman,” a 1937 Pablo Picasso oil painting full of a whirlwind of color and Cubist fragmentation.
According to the label, the kids’ preparation included researching what you get when you add collage elements, and how certain colors evoke certain tones. Sixth-grader Abdel Ramadan’s crushed Polar-brand soda can at the center of a universe of three suns is not only a pretty sophisticated conversation about colors and textures, but also a lot of fun.
The Library’s Community Engagement and Communication’s Manager Ashley Sklar, who helped organize the exhibition, took special delight in encountering this happy fat owl by Celentano Biotech, Health, and Medical Magnet School third-grader Neveah Daniels.
That’s because the wise, big-eyed owl is the animal symbol for the New Haven Free Public Library, she said, inaugurated last year when the library turned 125 years old. The show comprises the most art, all at once, that has ever been shown in the Ives Gallery, she added.
In the spring, there will be a culminating presentation of the kids’ art, from pre‑K through high school, whose aim is to highlight the students’ growth and progress throughout the school year.
That show, which used to be housed at the Board of Ed headquarters, now unfolds at Arte, the gallery and Latino cultural organization on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven.
Two other units on display included a research questionnaire on personal and family history that fourth-graders at King Robinson Inter-District Magnet School put together. Based on those, they did self portraits.
The research shows in the revealing self-portrait by fourth-grader Maylanni Carlson, done under the supervision of art teacher Mrs. Raymond.
Then nearby, you can contemplate the spiritual quality of simple straight lines, as did kids like Solano Anderson, a sixth-grader at Columbus Family Academy.
Working with her teacher Yolanda Petrocelli, Solano and others produced line drawings reflecting their observation of Agnes Martin’s work, which attain their power through simplicity and restraint.
Not bad lessons for sixth-graders to be learning.
Which is why Maust wrote the following about why training in the visual arts for all New Haven kids is important: “Through authentic, hands-on experiences in the artistic process, students learn to create, respond and connect to the world around them; they learn history and culture; they learn self-reflection, problem solving, perseverance, and the importance of presentation. As a means of expression, the Arts give students a powerful voice to express successes and struggles, hopes and disappointments. Visual Art is a non-verbal emotional communication. Arts education gives students the potential to be better people, more empathetic, more hum, more complete.”
Amen.
The show is up for viewing during regular library hours at the Ives Main Library, 133 Elm St., through Jan. 6.
