MEDIA RELEASE

Mailani Sills paints during the Parker School in the Art Start program.

Parker School students experienced first hand what it is like to live as an artist for a day. The annual program Art Start gives students the opportunity to learn from local artists in various disciplines and this year took on a new direction by celebrating and reflecting the multi-arts approach reflected within Parker School’s Fine Arts Department. In addition to the visual artists that have been the traditional foundation of Art Start, the program integrated literary, performing and media arts as well.

Visual artist, Dustin Brunelle, shared his talents in acrylic portraits and taught students the techniques for creating expressive human portraits with tips and tricks for lips, eyes, hands and skin tones. “I am so inspired. This makes me want to sign up for art next year. I didn’t know I could do something like this” exclaimed junior Sierra. Mailani Sills said, “I like the fact that he let us be free minded. He gave us instructions but let our creativity flow. Sierra had never done art before and hers was extraordinarily awesome”. “This is an amazingly talented group of students and it was an honor to work with them”, said Brunelle.

Elisha Chun works on her artwork at Parker School.

Local artist, Deborah Thompson helped students beautify the walls of their Snack Shop and give it a Surf Shop feel complete with customized surf boards. Students learned basic acrylic techniques to achieve lighting, shading and composition details in botanical palms and landscapes. Freshman participant, Mariko Langevin said, “I loved it. It was so much fun. I liked how we were able to leave a mark that will still be on campus for years to come.”

Artist Rachel Baker works with Nolan Cooke on stained glass art.

Rachel Baker taught students how to make individualized stained glass pieces. The students in this workshop found out that working in this medium comes with many scratches and cuts but noted the physical injuries didn’t taint their experience. Sara Divya taught a workshop on found image manipulation. Each project was based on a dreams and aspirations theme and students used both digital and hand drawn sources to explore drawing, paint and collage techniques.

Cathy Morgan led an introduction to printmaking where students familiarized themselves with the use of brayers, inks and plates to create several works of art. A project in mixed media collage was led by Laurie Goldstein who helped students explore the use of papers, fabric, colored pencils, acrylic, glue, distressed papers and transfer techniques to create beautiful collages.

Artist Pam Decker and student Sarah Hannon work on transfering art from Photoshop onto jewelry.

Pam Decker’s workshop focused on using Photoshop transferring to create unique one-of-a-kind jewelry including rings, charms and pendants. “That was THE coolest thing. We made jewelry and it really inspired me to want to make more jewelry. A lot of people saw our designs and thought they were so cool” said senior Sarah Hannon.

Performing and literary arts workshops were led by Kim Cope Tait who shared the art and craft of poetry, exposing students to writing and discussing poetry and learning about the publishing process. Megan Bonnici shared her dance skills and helped students create creative dance, movement and choreography. “It was a lot of fun” said freshman Cody Brown”. In the poetry workshop students worked with the dancers and filmmakers in a combined multi-media performance. Jane Sibbett and Megan Bonicci were the collaborating artists.

Sierra Manker works in the Art Start program.

Jane Sibbett who has dozens of credits as an actress on major network television shows and feature films shared her love of performing in her workshop. Junior Briana Boche and nine other Parker students worked with Sibbett during the program, “Art Start gave me a broader perspective on acting and also introduced me to the process of making an actual film rather than just performing on stage. I got to direct a video short which sparked my interest in a new area of the arts”.

Beth Dunnington presented a workshop focused on acting in TV commercials. They learned on-camera commercial techniques and performed student-written commercials for their classmates.

Andrea Gibbs led a musical theatre session complete with acting, singing and dancing. Film maker and photographer, Mike Peterson, led a workshop focusing on photography and portfolios.

Tom Quinlan leads an Irish music workshop.

Jessica Salerno-Woodbury, Tom Quinlan and Susan Sanderson shared their passion for Irish culture. Students explored the rich musical heritage of Ireland with reels, jigs, slow airs, Irish ballads, pub songs, poetry, and a good bit of blarney.

“What an incredible day! It felt like Parker School had become The Julliard School of the Arts for the day with students creating and exploring so many different creative modes of expression. The energy was palpable. I am so thankful to all the artists who generously support this program with their time and energy”, remarked Heidi Buscher, Parker School’s visual arts teacher. Art Start allows students to really sink their teeth into something for a full school day and accomplish what would typically take a week or more in the normal classroom schedule when art is sandwiched between academic classes, set-up and clean-up time each day.

This year we thank the many talented literary, visual, performing, and media artists who shared their time and talents with Parker School students during Art Start 2010. Many thanks also go to all the faculty, staff and parent volunteers who assisted the artists and sustained the creative buzz throughout the campus. For more information visit www.parkerschool.net.