Brookeside Montessori School art students in kindergarten through sixth grade are participating in a traveling art show from January through May.
Students will get to experience exhibiting their artwork in public spaces. This is a curated exhibition by Rachel Yoder, artist and art teacher at Brookeside Montessori School. The intention of this exhibition is to expose students to the beautiful and rewarding art discipline of community arts. Partnering with local businesses, students become mindful of the aesthetic responses art can evoke. Students are being introduced to art making for a purpose and practicing mindfulness during the art making process.
Students created 9″x12″ dimensional sculpture portraits with recycled cardboard. They built layers of surfaces and manipulated the materials to create a 3D groundhog. They also were allowed to add embellishments and color with markers. We discussed sustainable art a lot during the process. Students were asked to create their portraits with only the found materials available.
ArtFusion 19464 is hosting our Traveling Art Show for the month of February. ArtFusion 19464’s mission is “to enrich the lives of the residents in the greater Pottstown area through the visual arts, regardless of ethnicity and economic situations. Our goal is to spark creativity, build self-confidence and develop community bonds through education, mentoring and community service”.
An overarching theme for this year in art is folk art of the Pennsylvania Dutch. The current project: “3D Recycled/Sustainable Cardboard/Found Object Groundhog Assemblages” is honoring the groundhog, an animal associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch. The groundhog is looked to by the farmer to predict the future farming season and when they should plant. This tradition goes back to Germany and Europe. The Pennsylvania Dutch brought the tradition to Pennsylvania when they immigrated from Germany.
The bridge between this project and ArtFusion 19464 is students were asked to think about community while creating their artwork. They were told that ArtFusion 19464’s is both a gallery and place to learn how to make art for the greater community. Students collaborated with Mrs. Yoder and came up with a community of cardboard groundhogs.
Come see our exhibit at ArtFusion 19464 and enjoy some amazing art! It will be on display until February 29, 2020. We thank ArtFusion 19464 for graciously hosting our second exhibit in the Traveling Art Show series!
Brookeside’s child-centered educational environment provides activities and a Pennsylvania state approved curriculum appropriate to each child’s developmental stage. The integrated curricula are guided by a highly trained staff, who are aware of the needs of the individual child.
Enrollment is ongoing as space is available.