South Elementary School’s Art Show featured a variety of pieces made primarily from repurposed materials.
The eco-themed show, scheduled by a fortunate coincidence for Earth Day last week, served as an opportunity for families to learn how everyday items that often end up in the waste stream can be repurposed into works of art.
“It’s an interesting thing to talk to the kids about,” said Cynthia Robinson, who was South School’s Eco-artist-in-residence for a week earlier this month. “When I was growing up, these were new concepts – renew, reuse and recycle.”
Robinson said kids today know renew, reuse, recycle, but they don’t always have a deeper understanding of the concepts behind those words.
To help her students gain a stronger appreciation for those concepts, Robinson showed her students how to make stepping stones with repurposed bottle caps and buttons donated by Crawley Falls Antiques in Brentwood; and recycled paper with natural items they found around the school, like pine needles and bark that fell last year.
Students also thought about how art can convey a message as they created signs with multi-colored, repurposed bottle caps organized into words they brainstormed that describe eco-art, such as “clean.”
At the art show April 22, students proudly autographed the sign their class completed and walked family and friends down the school hallways, which were adorned with student work. A variety of sculptures made from recycled boxes, paper towels, wood and markers were on display in art teacher Marcia Connors’ classroom.
Connors students’ work was inspired by their collaboration with Robinson, as well as by what they learned about other eco-artists, such as John Dahlsen, who creates artwork from materials he finds on the beach, and American sculptor Louise Nevelson, an early eco-artist who worked with recycled wood she found in New York City.
Connors said through their work with Robinson and learning about other eco-artists, the students learned that reusing materials to create art is about more than just cleaning up the environment and preventing plastics from entering the waste stream.
“It showed them that they can make do so much more with the materials,” she said.
o-art shows that art doesn’t always have to be about creating something beautiful, Robinson said. It can also be about creating something that serves a purpose, or conveying a message.