Windham art teachers spent the week getting ready for the sixth annual Windham District Art Show that opens Monday, May 15, and showcases student work from all grades.
For the second year in a row, the art show will be held at Windham High School and transform halls in the western wing of the school into an open gallery.
Last year’s show featured more than 2,000 pieces of art – sculpture, paintings, mixed media, prints and other mediums – that climbed walls and wrapped around the school’s auditorium.
For students, the art show is an opportunity to show off their work and take pride in their artistic creativity.
For parents and the community, it’s an opportunity to see what Windham’s art program is all about, says Angelika Blanchard, Manchester teacher and art director for the Windham school district.
“It all has to do with providing children with the tools and the environment to create,” Blanchard said of art education.
Part of fostering that creativity is exposing children to different cultures and the works of master painters like Pablo Picasso and Georgia O’Keeffe, she says. Students mimic the masters with their own flair and the art of Aborigine, Egyptian, African and European cultures.
On exhibit this year will be a series of Mardi Gras masks created by middle school students. Touched by the hurricane disaster in New Orleans, students took part in their own Mardi Gras festival with floats and masks. They also donated books, canned dog food and collected money to help with the relief effort in Louisiana.
The art show will open with a reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday night and continue through the week.
Once again, the Windham Chamber Singers will perform in the auditorium on Monday night, followed by a slide show presenting different aspects of the district’s art program.
Outside the auditorium, high school students will demonstrate pottery sculpting, middle school students will make prints, and primary school students will show how to weave using a loom.
One special exhibit will feature colorful middle school collages. Through 3-D glasses made available there, visitors will literally be able to see the artwork come alive and shapes jump out of the frames.
Primary School art teacher Christina Warren commented about the art show while labeling and matting her students’ artwork for the upcoming show.
She enjoys seeing the students take pride in their work and is always interested to see how her former students have bloomed as young artists.
“This is our chance to show what we do,” Warren said of the annual art show. “And it’s nice for us teachers to see everything come together.”
At the Windham District Art Show next week, middle school collages will come alive when visitors put on 3-D glasses and watch the colors jump off the page.Send questions/comments to the editors.
