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WEEKS of July 16, 23 & 30, 2007
@BFS! archives

Students Celebrate Finale of First Summer Arts Session with Music, Masks, Shadow Puppets, and Art Exhibits

by John R. Martin

The next time you walk into 375 Pearl Street, look up towards the cafeteria mezzanine. Greeting you will be large, vibrant masks made by this year’s Summer Arts class here at Brooklyn Friends.

These masks were on display during an end of session art show for all students and their families held on July 6. The students were able to show off the excellent work they had created during the past two and a half weeks.

Teacher-artist Susan Greenstein directed the students through the process of creating the masks, from their conception to finished product. “I’m so proud of the students,” she said. “They had definite ideas about what they wanted the masks to look like and they worked together beautifully.” The masks were created out of multi-layers of cardboard, newspaper, and brown paper, which are formed into one piece using the papier maché process.  Afterwards, they were decorated with colored foil papers.

While the masks may have been the biggest creations on display, they were not the only. The Summer Art students also created magnificent shadow puppets under the direction of teacher-artist Vicki Behm. The students performed with their puppets for all to see at their “Shadows With A Mind Of Their Own” theater. The students also were taught to weave many materials, including paper strips, and even got to use a decades old loom, said Fiber Arts instructor Sarah Thomas. The students’ abilities to create these forms of art were rather impressive.

After the students and their parents had time to walk around and look at the art, they sat down for a Summer Arts rock concert. Before the music began, Director Rachel Webber talked to everyone about all the activities the Summer Arts Session I students undertook this year. Along with all the art and music they created, the students went on field trips to PS1 Contemporary Art Museum and to MoMA to learn about sculptor and video artist Richard Serra. During the session they also learned how to juggle and they were able to cool off at the Marriott pool.

After Rachel finished introducing all the teachers and counselors, music instructor Tony Soll took over to lead the students through some great original tunes. A performer and songwriter for more than 20 years, Tony told the audience that his young student- musicians were impressive in their ability to create their own songs and lyrics. He accompanied the students on guitar with help from 8th grade Brooklyn Friends student Jack Lazar on bass. Jack helped Tony out throughout the program to make the experience an even greater one for the children. 

The revolving group of students sang while playing snare drum, bongos, tambourines and shakers. They started off with a rousing rendition of the traditional folk song “The Cat Came Back.” After that, the first group, The Eternal Taymorians, came on to play “It’s Unfair!” an ode to the difficulties of being young.  Next was the James Brown influenced “Sleepovers are Cool” by The Shadows. After that came a fitting song—as the following day was Al Gore’s environmental awareness concert Live Earth—“The Earth and Me” by The Alber’s Art Stars, followed by their other hit “The Mighty Blue Ocean.”

Around this time Ton broke one of his guitar strings, which was the perfect opportunity to show the Summer Intensives animation project as he fixed his guitar. Summer Intensives is an art program for middle school students. The students created an abstract and hysterical video using new digital animation programs taught to them by BFS Digital Media teacher Andy Cohen.

The video showed the creative minds of these young students and their ability to make interesting characters and sounds with the program. Even more impressive was their ability to take their animated aliens and put them into real life footage that they shot of a quest for a missing student.

When the video ended, the band came back for an encore. First up was a song about the fictional superhero “Pigeonman” by The Cosmic Rockers. All the students did an amazing job of coming together and creating great music that the entire crowd enjoyed. For their grand finale, they played a rendition of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s  “Summer in the City,” entitled “Summer Arts in the City”, a perfect ending to the concert.

To close out the day, there was slideshow of all the best memories of the Summer Arts 2007 program. Now when the students come back to school in September and are asked what they did on their summer vacation, they will have some impressive answers and art, music, videos and photos to show just what they did.