Museum Project

Promotes Artistic Doodling At NMS

By Nancy K. Crevier

Thanks to Newtown Middle School art teachers Arlene Spoonfeather, Claudia Mitchell and Jean Walter, nearly 1,000 people of the NMS community are now “linked in” — but in a completely different way than the popular LinkedIn business network.

As participants of Draw On!, a program started in 2006 by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield to encourage people of all ages to join together through the act of drawing, NMS students and staff have created a paper chain linking each work of art to the next, and stretching along the ceiling from outside the school library nearly to the cafeteria in the next wing. 

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Draw On! program began this year on March 29 and continues to April 9. Schools, businesses, clubs and individuals from all around the region have been invited to participate. According to the museum’s website, Draw On! is “presented to schools as a way to convey awareness of how drawing can be a tool for learning.”

This is the fourth year that Newtown Middle School has participated in Draw On! and this year, “Everyone, including bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers, faculty, and students was invited to take part,” said Ms Spoonfeather.

Every year, the project is a little different, Ms Spoonfeather said, and this year she came up with the idea of using each person’s name as the jumping off point.

“We started about three weeks ago, and are finished now, except for a few who may still want to join in. Each person is given a strip of paper, 2 inches by 12 inches, and told to start with his or her name, and then embellish it in any way, from there,” she said.

Markers, watercolors, crayons, pen, pencil, dried leaves, and even sea glass have turned the strips of paper into colorful works of art that reflect the personality of each artist. The names are readily deciphered on some of the strips, but on others the letters have become an abstract part of the creation. The finished strips were turned into a paper chain and hung down the center hallway by Ms Walter’s art club, said Ms Spoonfeather.

The beauty of this project, she said, is that it reminds people how essential drawing is for everyone.

“Just to draw is intimidating for so many,” said Ms Spoonfeather, who has observed that it is right around the seventh grade level when people lose the spontaneity of earlier years. In the early teen years, a person’s actual ability tends to be behind the skill level needed to carry out a vision, “and people stop drawing.”

Draw On! is the perfect venue, Ms Spoonfeather said, to get people back to the joy of drawing.