search BFS site

WEEKS of August 20 & 27, 2007
@BFS! archives

Self Portrait: BFS Art Show Reflects Life on the Third Floor

by Jeffrey Stanley

Visual Arts chair Roz Sommer’s art class was just getting started. Today the first graders were continuing their work on the annual “big people” project, which has become a perennial springtime sight at the school. For this project, the students paint standing human figures, each about eight feet tall. To simplify the process, the figures are broken into three segments, each completed one at a time. They begin painting the face on one sheet, the torso on another, and finally the legs. The three completed segments are taped together and then displayed in the BFS lobby.

These young students also learn color mixing, and are encouraged to experiment on their own to use various shades, brushes and strokes. Keeping skin tones consistent between faces and hands was the order of the day. Students sometimes ran into trouble matching the face they had painted one day to the hands they were painting the next.

They also explored the many ways one could pose the arms and hands despite the limited size of the paper. “This stroke makes a perfect finger,” said Roz, demonstrating for a student having trouble painting a hand. The other students quickly gathered round to watch and learn.

“Call it the finger brush!” shouted one impressed student.

“We could,” said Roz.

“Roz! I don’t know which color I used for my face!”

“Roz! I made mess-up!”

“Let me see. No, you can fix this.”

“Roz, I’m done!”

“Wow, another one finished.”

In the end, the limited space and limitless imaginations led to a variety of “giant people.”

It was clean-up time at the end, and the wet sponges came out. Roz’s assistant Henry, a student-teacher from Brooklyn College, began moving the kids’ artwork to the drying racks in the corner.

STILL-LIFES AND GIGGLES

Across the hall, Mark Buenzle’s upper school painting class was underway. Mark sat poring over a thick book on surrealism as the students worked. The seniors were gone on their two-week May internships so the class size had been reduced to five. “The first semester was acrylic painting,” he said. “The second semester is watercolors; they do three projects. The major two have been finished and now they’re doing still-lifes.”

Whereas one might expect fruit and a wine jug, Mark had his students sketch a pile of human organs scooped from the plastic, medically accurate human torso standing in the corner, his wry sense of humor showing through. In the hallway just outside the classroom door, an argument raged between two female students, something about a boy. The argument distracted Mark’s giggling students, who couldn’t help but overhear. They weren’t the only ones captivated by the drama.

Mark finally approached the open doorway. “You guys, this is incredibly distracting. I can’t get any work done because I’m dying to find out who you’re arguing about. So either argue in here so we can all hear, or take it somewhere else.” His humorous approach to the conflict won out, dispelling the tension. The arguing students began to laugh and Mark’s students got back to work. His classroom management technique might not work for every subject or every teacher, but it was conducive to the third floor’s overall ethos.

CERAMICS AND SCIENCE

In the ceramics studio across the hall from Mark’s class, clay dust hung in the air and had settled on just about everything in the room. Rachel Goldsmith, a Pratt graduate student working toward her teaching certification, moved about the room quietly taking photographs of the students at work. She had spent the fall semester observing these students in Ellen Kahan’s classes, and returned today to visit them and to drop off a copy of the book she created documenting her semester. Professionally assembled and bound by hand, it was a beautiful keepsake. Ellen was clearly delighted with the book. “You came up with this – it makes me want to take my course,” she said, beaming.

The spacious BFS ceramics studio becomes a part of every student’s visual arts program beginning in fifth grade. By eighth grade students can choose ceramics as a full-year elective. The course even contains an element of hard science. The dinnerware that the students are creating will need to be fired at above 1900 degrees to kill any toxins in the glaze and make it safe for serving food. Lower temperature glazes allow for brighter colors but can’t be used for dinnerware, hence the muted colors.

“I can’t unload the kiln until this afternoon but if you’re interested in coming back to see your glazes, it’s 600 degrees now so it should be cool enough by two o’clock,” Ellen told the students. Firing the pieces takes about 20 hours and cooling usually takes nine hours, the kiln needing to be cooled to under 200 degrees before removing the glazed dishes so they don’t crack.

A veteran art teacher, Ellen takes particular pride in the glazes because she made them herself. BFS is somewhat rare, she said, in that the art department makes the glazes from scratch rather than buying them pre-made. “Kaolin, silica, feldspar,” she rattled off, explaining the recipes for various colors. “Red iron oxide, copper carbonate, zinc, cobalt oxide.”

Meanwhile the ninth and tenth graders completed their dinnerware projects, wheel-throwing sets of cups, saucers and bowls, glazing them and preparing them for the kiln which was presently filled with last night’s load. “They’re so committed, they’re so full of energy. This is like a college class,” said Ellen. She was referring to this particular group’s enthusiasm and ability to function independently.

As they worked, the students chatted back and forth across the room about Spiderman III and the latest American Idol results. Ninth grader Marlene sat at her wheel crafting a bowl. Next to her, sophomore Rico didn’t let a wrist cast (the result of a recent fall) stop him from cranking out dinner plates on the wheel at a rate of one every 2 to 3 minutes. Nearby, sophomore Alex laid out his fully completed, green-glazed set for inspection, making sure it was ready for the upcoming all-school art show.

BROOLKYN LANDSCAPES

In Tina Piccolo’s 2-D Drawing class upper school students would go outside to work on this warm spring day. “Has anyone ever drawn outside?” Tina, a graduate of Cooper Union, asked the group. In addition to sketching landscapes, people and architecture, the goal was to experiment with different drawing materials. Tina held up strong examples of previous students’ work, some incredibly detailed, others in a more free-flowing style. “We’re going to go out and get a taste of it.” The students grabbed their drawing tablets and followed her out.

Soon they were at Cadman Plaza, squinting in the bright sunlight and seeking out vantage points while a concert band played for the lunchtime crowd of lawyers, jurors and office workers. Not a bad way to hold a class. The students spread out, most of them opting for the shade of the Borough Hall steps, planting themselves among tourists and mothers with strollers. The blaring orchestra music, a lemon ice salesman, and the steady pedestrian traffic on the steps made drawing a challenge, the kids more interested in buying iceys than in scoping out an urban landscape.

“I think there are too many distractions here,” lamented Tina. “The iceys, the music, the babies.” Despite the distractions, the students soon blended into their surroundings and their sketched scenes soon began to take shape.

“Tina, can we get iceys?” sheepishly asked one student, pointing to the nearby vendor selling lemon ices.

“If I’m in a good mood,” she joked. “And what’s going to put me in a good mood?”

The student quickly returned to her sketch.

All in all, not a bad first taste of outdoor drawing. The students would return here later in the week to get down to serious business and finish this year-end project. The semester was winding down and going outside to work was a good way to wrap up the semester and to welcome summer.

THE BIG SHOW

One morning a week later, Roz and woodworking teacher Tim Waugh stood in the middle of the lower gym trying to decide what should be done next. The visual art faculty and their volunteers had stayed late at school the previous night to move a year’s worth of student work from the 3rd floor art classrooms down to the basement. Photography teacher Gregg Martin had just added some final touches to his students’ black and white and digital color photography exhibits in the first floor lobby. The massive move of artwork had continued into the morning, all in preparation for the All-School Art Show, an annual event that would open later in the week. This huge exhibition includes work by students from the Preschool through the Upper School. The hundreds of pieces all had to be arranged on tables and flats covering just about every square foot of the gym.

Art teacher Abby DuBow helped twelfth grader Emily Martin decide how best to hang her installation, a mixed media opus made up of smaller elements—photos, drawings, words. The elegant piece didn’t yet have a title yet but she was considering “Self Portrait”. She was excited because it was the first such piece she had done, explaining that in previous years her work had been one large drawing or painting. Emily considers herself a serious student of art and will be off to Brown University this fall where she expects to continue that interest.

Across the gym, a volunteer hung self-portraits from Abby’s 11th and 12th grade course, “The Human Figure.” Throughout the year these students worked with clothed and nude models, experimenting with charcoal, India ink, oil sticks, acrylics and collage.

Roz and Tina worked together relocating senior Isaac Diebboll’s giant three-piece canvas mural so its table could be repositioned for optimum viewing upon first entering the gym. It would serve as a monumental centerpiece of sorts for the big show.

With so much faculty involvement and passion at the heart of it, the Art Show is in some ways a self-portrait of the Visual Arts department itself. “We’re a team that works together to make art a central part of the school,” explained Roz. “For the students, the visual arts program is a way of thinking, seeing, and growing. It’s not just about talent and creativity. It’s about problem-solving, learning new techniques, seeing the results of process, research, and going through various steps to achieve a final product or body of work.”

She continued, “We teach our students to view art as a way of relating to the world. We study the history of art and the art of different cultures and examine our place in the world. Through the BFS Art Show, we also see and celebrate the range and connections of our student artwork from preschool through 12th grade. Our students are excited about seeing their own work, but also the work of others. They compliment one another and look forward to future projects.”

See a movie slideshow showcasing some of the fabulous student work in the Art Show!