- State College Area School District
- State College Area School District
Getting Creative with Art
Instead of being taken away, the annual Park Forest Middle School art show will be taken outdoors, al fresco-style.
This spring, pandemic health and safety protocols kicked the show out of the library, its traditional venue. It looked as though the showcase for exceptional artwork by students in grades 6-8 would be canceled — until Park Forest’s art teachers, in the spirit of their profession, decided to get creative.
As a result, the “Under the Lights” show on May 26 will transform an area next to the school and cap a challenging year in grand fashion. For a captivating evening, students and their families will behold works while strolling through an open-air gallery complete with spotlighted displays and overhead lights.
One of the organizers, art teacher Austin Van Allen, says the show not only will honor student accomplishments during a challenging year, but also provide another chance for the community to resume normal patterns of life.
“We’re hoping that this year, with the show being outside, we can really use this as an opportunity to bring people together while maintaining safety,” he said. “I think that’s why it was so important that we do our best to make sure the show happens again this year.”
Van Allen also teaches music, and discussions about having outdoor concerts this spring inspired him to think of an alternative art show. He and art colleagues Rebecca Donaghue, Danielle Fulmer and Molly Gazda then turned that concept into an exhibition that will feature a diverse array of art, including printmaking, paintings, drawings, sculpture, animation, visual journals, mobile murals, multi-media still lifes, and digital photography.
As the show’s title promises, pieces will be illuminated, courtesy of a grant from the school’s parent-teacher organization. For additional glitz, strings of lights will adorn surrounding basketball hoops and trees.
“Showcasing our student artist's hard work and creative self expression will make for a truly inspiring and magical event,” Donaghue said.
Among the pieces will be examples of “choice-based art,” part of the art curriculum where students create hybrid works by deciding which techniques and materials to combine. In fact, Van Allen said, students this year had to make many creative decisions while adjusting to hybrid and remote learning, which he hopes the show also will represent.
“They’ve had to be more innovative in terms of what they can do at home and in school, or fully at home or fully in school, so there’s a wider range of pieces of artwork that come out of that,” he said. “I’m really impressed with the students’ creative processes and the things that they’ve done to make beautiful pieces of artwork this year.”
Some items, such as fuse flash jewelry and calendars with student artwork, will be for sale to help fund hallway murals and other art club activities. Mainly, though, the show is meant to enrich spirits — a luminous celebration that gives students a chance to shine. Attendance will be limited to families for safety, but if all goes well this year, the show might stay outside and invite the public to experience the breadth of Park Forest’s creativity.
Now that would be a truly artful approach to ending the year.
By Chris Rosenblum
Photos by Nabil K. Mark