Celebrating student creativity

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This article was published 11/05/2018 (2790 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you have 281 creative students in your school, why not celebrate?

That’s the idea behind Calvin Christian School’s Art Show, which took place at the elementary school campus (245 Sutton Ave.) on May 10 and 11.

“Schools often have a lot of athletic stuff, but this is a great way to showcase some great skills that students have other than athletics,” said Brittany Fraser, a Grade 5 teacher at the school. “The whole community is invited to come and take a look and just see the talent that our kids have.”

Fraser and the other planning committee members — teachers Garth Allen, Tara Reimer, and Tricia Harris — co-ordinated with each class in the K-6 school to feature artwork from as many students as possible.

“Each class selects a few pieces of art work,” Fraser said. “Sometimes it’s a whole class set, other times just a few select pieces.”

Grade 6 student Ella Vandenberg painted a watercolour silhouette of a bare tree for her piece.
“We used twigs to paint the details,” Vandenberg said. “This was very new to me. I really like it because you had your own design to do it.”

Fraser’s Grade 5 class did papier-mâché sculpture self-portraits, a project that took months to complete.

“We start with a bottle, then did papier-mache and plaster, then painted it all to look like us,” said Lydia-Jane Algera, one of Fraser’s Grade 5 students. “I love Harry Potter, so I have a Harry Potter book and I’m waving, because I like making friends.”

Johann Strumphen and his Grade 3 classmates also made sculptures, although his class made them out of recyclable materials.

“It had to look like a robot,” Strumphen said. “I used the brackets that opened a cupboard for the arms. I wanted to make it like a machine that can shoot and battle. That’s how I also got the name, Samurai Electro.”

Belen Infantes and her Grade 3 class worked on perspective in their watercolour self-portraits.

“We had to do a painting of us falling back,” Infantes explained. “It was hard but it was fun. We had to trace our hands and our shoes. We had to make the arms thicker near the hands and skinnier near the body so it looks like we’re falling. Our legs were like that too. We had to do it with pencil first then go all over with Sharpie. I had to erase a lot of stuff and start over. The dog on my shirt, it looked like a deer at first!”

All four students who spoke to The Herald said they were proud of the work they and their classmates had done for the show, which was set up in the school’s gym by staff and students.

“I feel happy about it, having my art in the show so everyone can see it,” Infantes said.

“It’s kind of cool,” Vandenberg said. “Usually, when you do art, people don’t see it. But here you can see everybody’s art and you can know what everybody’s doing.”

“It’s a great way to celebrate student creativity,” Fraser added with a smile.