Date: Fri 30-May-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

NHS-spring-art-show-Hanna

Full Text:

(NHS Student Spring Art Show preview, 5/30/97)

From Within The Rubble, An Art Show Will Emerge

(with photos)

BY SHANNON HICKS

Students at Newtown High School have been working and studying under some very

difficult circumstances during the 1996-97 school year. With construction in

and around the building - the result of a $25 million upgrade and renovation

project - that has been in progress since last July, the school now looks like

a war zone. This weekend, some of the school's student artists will change

that.

Outdoors, Bruce Jenner Stadium has been bulldozed; the football field/running

track will be turned into a multi-use field by the time school re-opens in the

fall. Opposite the field, construction is continuing on part of the school's

74,000-square foot addition.

And indoors, the sights are not much easier to look at. Bare cement shows

along much of the upper walls in the art/music wing. Various pipes and wires

are running across many of the ceilings. The lighting in the building only

seems to accentuate the dour feel of a building that is showing its age, and

under construction. None of this spells a welcome or inviting atmosphere in

which to teach or learn.

With the school year coming to a close, a number of the school's art students

have been invited by the school's art faculty to present the school's annual

art show.

The show opened Thursday, May 29, during school hours. It will continue

through Sunday, June 1. The public is invited to visit the school cafeteria

and lobby to enjoy the hundreds of pieces of work on display.

This year's show has a dual purpose. Not only will it highlight the projects

of students who have taken art, it will also serve to brighten the students'

surroundings.

"The art can't help but make the school look better," art teacher Joyce Hanna

said earlier this week. Works by students of Mrs Hanna and Carol Washburn,

another of the school's art faculty, will be presented in the show.

"With the construction surrounding us, this is a terrible environment to show

artwork," Ms Hanna said. "And this has been a shortened year - finals are

already upon us - but we're going to do this anyway. It wouldn't be fair to

the seniors to not have this show."

A tradition at the high school, the spring art show is the last hurrah for

Newtown's seniors, many of whom will be moving on to art school and college in

the fall. Newtown High School seniors have been accepted into New York

University, Pratt, the Rhode Island School of Design and Syracuse University,

among others.

So while works by freshmen, sophomores and juniors will be presented in the

school's cafeteria-turned-gallery space, a number of seniors are given

additional space in the school's lobby to turn into their own galleries. There

are works in myriad media, from watercolor and pastel to mixed media clothing

and collages.

Megan Reda came up with a skirt with the solar system presented. The sophomore

even made a matching purse to complete the ensemble.

Megan's project is an excellent example of the ingenious kind of creativity

students can come up with, regardless of their working environment. The talent

revealed in the art on exhibit is a testament to the creativity of students

clearly undaunted by unmitigated drabness of construction.

"The surroundings and the whole situation is so haphazard," Mrs Hanna said.

"But that's how the whole year has been... we just had to go with it.

"The work is so fabulous, the show will be wonderful."

The Newtown High School Student Art Show, "Exercise Your Soul," will continue

in the school's cafeteria and lobby Friday, May 30, during school hours. It

continues this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, May 31-June 1, from 1 to 4 pm

each day.