Date: Fri 20-Sep-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

schools-art-construction

Full Text:

with cuts: High School Artists Draw Inspiration From Construction

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

A scenic landscape of a bulldozer laboring in a deep pit, framed by a chicken

wire fence?

A cubist rendering of the snake-like grid of exposed heating and water pipes?

An apocalyptic vision of a dirt and rubble mountain criss-crossed by "Caution"

banners?

These and other images of change were captured by several art students in

Joyce Hannah's drawing classes at Newtown High School recently, when the

students were asked to study their surroundings with a critical eye and to

explore the creative angles offered by all the activity surrounding them.

The massive construction project now underway provided ample opportunity for

carrying out that assignment.

The students were asked not only to study the visual evidence of change, Ms

Hannah said, they should also include familiar details that have survived that

process of change, such as two wall telephones hanging beneath a sign to the

music room or a Pepsi cooler - virtually untouched beneath the recently gutted

ceilings.

With sketchbooks and pencil or pen in hand, the art students searched out

their subjects.

"We're studying composition, so I asked them to consider placement of shapes

and the use of perspective," Ms Hannah explained Monday.

The result was a thick folder full of drawings, many documenting the progress

of the high school construction project as it looked to Newtown students the

second week of September, 1996.