Kane Fifth Grade Art Club Mural Projects
Yesterday in the midst of my total melancholy ramblings about the state of my hometown, I mentioned that Janine Greville Smith and her husband tracy have been working after school with interested Fifth Graders to paint murals for the Kane Community Center. Because Kane has no art instructor at the elementary schools, Janine and Tracy wanted to give students an opportunity to experience real art media and materials in elementary school. I haven't seen what they have done in previous years, but I hope they have the chance to work with clay, and silk-screening, and other media and methods that will stimulate all those things art experimentation is supposed to promote in kids at these impressionable ages.
Anway, thanks to a grant from the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance,
the Fifth Graders were able to have an art club again this year. They completed three murals that will be permanently housed in the Community Center. These acryllic paintings each depict something historical regarding the Kane area. In the picture above are two of the paintings, one of the Kinzua Viaduct (until recently the largest regional tourism draw of the area that was destroyed in a tornado 2 years ago) and a lone Lobo Wolf above a valley (Kane was once the home of a Famous Lobo Wolf farm). The mural below is my favorite of the three. It is of the Kane Manor, the mansion built by Kane's founding family that exists today as a Bed & Breakfast. When I was in high school their grounds were open for Cross Country skiing and you could rent equipment there. I wish they still had that. More recently there was a really cool bar in the basement where some local accoustic musicians would jam, but I think it is closed now. Anyway, the painting reminds me of another artist, whose name completely escapes me. I want to say Hopper, but when you look at this, Hopper isn't quite right. Maybe a California Artist? Anyway here is the third of the murals
This event was attended from the community by the mayor, the borough manger, State Rep. Kathy Rapp, as well as 2 school board members and some parents. I was surprised more teachers and especially the art teachers that are in the school district at the higher grades were not in attendance as well, but I know, teachers have lives, etc. But still, these kids accomplished a lot with these three murals.
Anway, thanks to a grant from the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance,
the Fifth Graders were able to have an art club again this year. They completed three murals that will be permanently housed in the Community Center. These acryllic paintings each depict something historical regarding the Kane area. In the picture above are two of the paintings, one of the Kinzua Viaduct (until recently the largest regional tourism draw of the area that was destroyed in a tornado 2 years ago) and a lone Lobo Wolf above a valley (Kane was once the home of a Famous Lobo Wolf farm). The mural below is my favorite of the three. It is of the Kane Manor, the mansion built by Kane's founding family that exists today as a Bed & Breakfast. When I was in high school their grounds were open for Cross Country skiing and you could rent equipment there. I wish they still had that. More recently there was a really cool bar in the basement where some local accoustic musicians would jam, but I think it is closed now. Anyway, the painting reminds me of another artist, whose name completely escapes me. I want to say Hopper, but when you look at this, Hopper isn't quite right. Maybe a California Artist? Anyway here is the third of the murals
This event was attended from the community by the mayor, the borough manger, State Rep. Kathy Rapp, as well as 2 school board members and some parents. I was surprised more teachers and especially the art teachers that are in the school district at the higher grades were not in attendance as well, but I know, teachers have lives, etc. But still, these kids accomplished a lot with these three murals.
Comments
Kane not having an art teacher at the elementary level is not new. When I was in grade school we had Mrs. Gable for art, Mrs. Jesse for gym, and Mrs. Carlson for music (and of course the Schmidts for instrumental). Sometime around 1980-1982 (I can't remember if it was 3, 4, or 5 grade), these teachers were eliminated (except of course for instrumental) for budgetary concerns. The argument was that while art, music,and gym instruction was required at the primary levels, a subject-specific teacher was not. These were then assigned to the classroom teacher at clay street and Mt. Jewett, or in the case of chestnut street school, distributed among the grade teams. A lot of schools must do this because I remember the el-edmajors in college having to take art and music classes as part of their requirements. This also meant for the last half of grade school, our art instruction was mostly craft-like--glue this tissue paper on this construction paper type of stuff. Like many Janine's students, I never touched any traditional art media while at school.
By the time my youngest sisters were in gradeschool 8-10years later, some of the teachers had been restored--at least gym and general music, but I can't remember if they had art outside of their classroom teacher, nor if they have these still at the school. It wouldn't suprise me if they never restored the art teacher position since the 80s