Tuesday, October 16, 2007 12:20 AM CDT
Fantastic Art Night will cap artist-in-residence program at Williams school
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — If you don’t know when to hold ‘em or when to fold ‘em, why not just do both?
From hand-made pottery to Origami frogs, Williams Elementary School is the place to be tonight for anyone looking to make, mold, or otherwise manipulate media such as fabric, paper and clay.
Fantastic Art Night lasts 6:30-8 p.m. at the Mattoon elementary school and is open to students, parents and, if space permits, other community members. Sessions run 6:45-7:15 p.m. and 7:25-7:50 p.m.
The free art night caps a six-week artist-in-residence program at Williams, funded by the Illinois Arts Council, the Ruth and Vaughn Jaenike Access to the Arts Outreach Program and the Williams’ Parent Teacher Organization.
“It’s meant to be a hands-on activity for children and their parents, and it’s a way for the residency to reach out to the community,” said longtime art educator and textile designer Pay Mahler.
She spent the last month-and-a-half at Williams, working with all grade levels on a project titled: “Cloth for Stories, Records of the Past and Present.”
However, tonight’s program not only incorporates cloth, but also paper and clay. Specifically, IAC guest artist and papermaker Dennis Morris of Springfield will host demonstrations at the arts night, and he is on hand during school hours today helping students.
“He is a superb teacher,” Mahler said. “It is just fun to watch him work with the kids.”
Additionally, the event tonight features area native and award-winning artist Patrick Hutti, who will conduct “hand-built pottery” presentations. Hutti operates a wood-burning kiln in Charleston, specializing in wood-fired pottery and ceramics.
“He’s so excited about doing (the arts night),” said Mahler.
Williams art teacher Joyce Jackson said, “If community members would like to come and see the demonstrations, they’re welcome as well.”
In addition to paper and pottery making, other workshops tonight include:
n Origami jumping frogs.
n Clay medallions.
n Sumi (Japanese ink brush painting).
n Artist trading cards.
n Cloth treasure bags.
n Model “magic” puppets.
n T-shirt painting.
n Paper hats.
n And Indian music.
“The longterm objective is that we, as artists, hope the teachers and the students will benefit, (and) the teachers will learn from these techniques and be able to continue them,” Mahler said.
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
