Artist in Residence Program, 2009-2010
Cultural Arts Celebrates Earth Week!
It’s Earth Week at RHPS, and the Cultural Arts Committee is excited to be contributing to the festivities. Throughout the year, we have incorporated a “green” theme into the cultural arts offerings for all students, from assemblies such as educational performer Billy B’s “Recyclemania” to collaborative workshop visits from visual and musical artists. Each grade has had the opportunity to participate in an artist-in-residence program, and now that Earth Week is here, the students are ready to celebrate, perform, and unveil their prior residency work for the whole school.
Back in December, the second-graders worked with artist Molly Ross who engaged them in the creation of a series of Magic Lantern Shows utilizing the technique of overhead projector shadow puppetry. Each class made its own short video entitled “Green Dreams” to be viewed this week.
Last month in March, the kindergarteners were given the opportunity to collaborate with performing songwriter Sue Trainor who led them in an exploration of original music to communicate the theme of how to be “green.” Working closely with her to study the musical aspects of language and lyrics and to experiment with rhythm and melody, each class composed an original song about recycling/reuse, energy conservation, trees, or water conservation. The kindergarteners are thrilled to be able to share their compositions with the rest of the school this week.
And last week our first-graders were treated to the chance to work with visual artist Karen O. Brown to “recycle” ordinary classroom chairs into something very special. Focusing on themes from nature, the students teamed up with the artist to transform the existing chairs into beautifully and colorfully collaged works of art. Chairs were vibrantly painted; illustrations were cut and recycled from deaccessioned library books, arranged into themed collages, and glued onto the chairs; and a protective sealant was applied to ready the chairs for use again. Two chairs were temporarily borrowed from all of the school’s classrooms to be returned to them in their new creatively “recycled” state.
The focus of all of these projects’ on “green” themes imaginatively expresses RHPS’s pride in being named a Maryland Green School and contributes to a greater understanding of the importance of taking care of the world around us.
It was wonderful to see the creative juices flow from the minds of our Rosemary Hills students all year. Thank you to the PTA for funding these exciting programs and to all the RHPS teachers, staff, and, of course, parents, who helped to make these projects a success. Your efforts, interest and enthusiasm in celebrating the arts at Rosemary Hills is greatly appreciated!
First Grade mini “Artist-in-Residence” program
As part of this year's Cultural Arts Programming, we are bringing Teaching Artist Karen Brown to RHPS to work with our 1st Graders for 3 days: April 13, 15, & 16. Karen Brown will conduct workshops to help the 1st graders transform existing chairs into beautifully collaged works of art!
This will be a fun project that will leave the school with over 50 unique and colorful "Recycled Chairs", but we will need lots of PTA parent support! There are several different ways you can help, volunteer slots are available as follows:
- Spray painting (adult) prep work on Mon. April 12: 1.5 hour shifts: 9:30-11:00 and 11:00-12:30.
- Assist with the first workshop on Tues. April 13: 1 hour shifts. Children will be selecting & cutting collage materials. If you have a 1st grader, contact your room parent to check the schedule and sign up with your child's class, if desired.
- Assist with the second & third workshops on either April 15 or April 16: 1 hour shifts. Children will be gluing collage materials onto their chairs. If you have a 1st grader, contact your room parent to check the schedule and sign up with your child's class, if desired.
- Shellac (adult) finish work on Fri. April 16: 1.5 hour shifts: 9:30-11:00 and 5:30-7:00
If you have a 1st Grader, please contact your Room Parent directly to sign up for a volunteer slot
All interested parents are welcome to join in! Please contact Carolyn Greis (CAGreis@msn.com) or Alison Carr (buzzcarr@verizon.net). If you are not sure of who your 1st Grade Room Parent is, or if you are the parent of a child in another grade.
Further Details:
- Please have your 1st Grader wear old clothes on April 15th & 16th when the (potentially messy) gluing process will take place.
- *If anyone has old cans of spray paint lying around, we can use them! Please bring unused or partially used cans of spray paint (all colors) to the box in the front office marked “Spray Paint for Recycled Chairs”.
- *Only parents will be spray painting. But if we want to err on the side of caution, it would be helpful to have a few mask respirators on hand. Not the simple cloth/cardboard ones, but the real respirators that contractors use. If you have one, please email: CAGreis@msn.com or buzzcarr@verizon.net.
Here's a picture of what some of our chairs might look like!
Thank you so much.
We appreciate your involvement on this exciting project for RHPS!
Alison Carr & Carolyn Greis, RHPS Cultural Arts Co-Chairs