Arts in the Schools
Young Creative Minds

Opening Reception: Friday, February 3 at 5:00 p.m.
Exhibit remains through February 26, 2012
Gualala Arts Center

The Mendocino / Sonoma "Arts in the Schools" program represents over 600 students from Fort Ross, Kashia, Horicon, Arena, Point Arena High School, Home Study, Pacific Community Charter School and Manchester schools.

Each year, Gualala Arts features artwork created through-out the year in these local elementary and high schools. The students work is always fun to see and very creative. This is just one more way that Gualala Arts supports and promotes public interest and participation in the arts.

The February art show of student works will feature the creativity of grades pre-school through 12th grade.

Each of our local schools approach art in their own unique way. Often it depends on the classroom teacher's talents and how they find ways to blend a creative project into the curriculum.

There are schools here on the coast that fortunately still have an art program where students spend part of each week in an art room. This is a huge accomplishment considering budget cuts, even though research shows that art and creativity help children succeed in the core curriculum subjects.

Thankfully we live in a supportive community full of artists, some of whom even contribute a percentage of their sales to art in our schools. (THANK YOU!)

We invite everyone to come by and view the student art exhibit. There are always surprises and unexpected variations of traditional techniques. Come enjoy the visual treats.

Point Arena High School

Rationale

Point Arena High School students have been using their creative talents and working hard at setting high standards, exploring key skills in artistic practice. Understanding, Investigating and Making are three core principles that set the structure for development in art and design and are integrated in class activities. Pupils developed their understanding and investigating skills in order to enrich and inform their creative artwork.

Ceramics

Project 1 "The Overlooked Landscape"
Students researched the contemporary artist Mark Boyle and investigated his art practice and theory to inform their own making skills. Students experimented with a variety of surfaces, textures and natural / made pieces. Exploring the artist's 'relief' style prompted students to respond to their own "overlooked landscape," using their personal journey of 'looking down' in their chosen urban / country / seascape / landscape environment setting. The expression "familiarity breeds contempt" offered a trigger to re-investigate the familiar environment that we simply pass by from day-to-day and use the local landscape to inspire classroom art practice.

Project 2 "Multi-Cultural Shoe"
Students used a variety of forms to collect visual research to explore the seven continents of the world, integrating different shoe features from global cultures. Through investigating pattern, shape, form, poetry and the world of shoe art, students developed their unique style. Students had the opportunity to explore different techniques in hand building and sculpting 3D clay work. Each shoe has a different poem to tell, just ask the artists!

Art 1

Project 1 "Landscape and Identity"
Students explored their local environment and responded through creative mixed media paintings based on contemporary landscape art. Learning about different approaches to landscape representation from traditional watercolor painting experimentation to modern mixed media paintings offered a platform for investigation. Using a viewfinder technique to enlarge scale and define the space, allowed students to develop 2D design skills. Using sewing to 'draw a line' takes the pressure off the artist and puts it on the main focus; the line. Using leaves and natural media offered surface and texture experimentation, using the landscape to create a new landscape. The final canvases are a development of all three media to address the issue of landscape painting in a modern society.

Project 2 "Create your own CD/Album Cover"
Students responded to album/CD cover art and reviewed the Welsh rock band, the "Super Furry Animals." Students viewed the joint artwork of the two artists that created the images for the album/CD covers. The Welsh artist Pete Fowler and the Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami worked together to create the covers that inspired our pair activity and built key skills in communication and collaboration. Using the symmetrical and asymmetrical 2D design style format the students use their imagination to create their own original 'monster characters' and unique patterns which fueled this action packed project! (Did you know? Most people don't even look at the art on the CD covers because they don't have CD's anymore! It's just a name and a click to download your tune...)

AP College Art

2D-Design
Students taking AP College Art have selected their favorite pieces to display and are exploring 2D design focusing on unity / variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, repetition, proportion / scale and figure / ground relationship. Individualized teaching and learning aids each student to visually explore, record and respond to their unique agenda in art and design practice. These principles are articulated through the visual elements of line, shape, color, value, texture and space.

The Gualala Arts Center, located at 46501 Old State Highway in Gualala, CA,
is open weekdays 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and weekends from noon to 4:00 p.m.
Please call (707) 884-1138 for more information, or email info@gualalaarts.org.

Serving the coastal communities of northern Sonoma & southern Mendocino Counties.