Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Artist at Work: Art docent Cathy Nichols helps Jill Joy, 8, work on her project, which involves drawing a picture on a piece of sandpaper with crayon, and then making a print of it by ironing the image onto another piece of paper.
Program creates art revival in a local elementary school
Volunteer art docents help children explore fascinating world of the visual arts
By Chantal Lamers
Students from Willow Glen Elementary School are carrying home paintings and self-portraits for mom and dad for house and refrigerator decorations, since a new art docent program began.
The art docent program was initiated by the Parent Teacher Association in September, after it sent out a survey asking WGES parents where they'd like to see PTA money spent. Since art and music programs have been lacking in schools due to struggling budgets and district cutbacks, the majority of parents decided they wanted a little bit of Picasso brought back into the classroom.
PTA member Marylea Adams helped to establish the art program and generate about 16 volunteers to visit first-, second- and third-grade classrooms twice a month. The volunteers give art lessons and teach art history.
"The arts are important to the way a child develops," Adams says. "For a long time, art wasn't being taught in the school, art didn't have the same importance as math."
Adams, who has a Bachelors Degree in Art from CSU-Long Beach, says she's glad art is making a comeback. "The idea of art being important dropped off, but all of a sudden people noticed, parents noticed, and wanted it back."
Inside Arlene Runels' second-grade classroom, self-portraits of her student are tacked to the wall. The portraits are modeled after French artist Henri Matisse's colorful style.
But on this sunny afternoon, art docents Clara Rowe and Cathy Nicols will give an art lesson to 20 excited children on texture, using sandpaper, crayons, pastels, paper and an iron.
As Rowe tells the students about the sandpaper prints they'll create that afternoon, they "ooh" and "ah" at the examples she shows them. The students return to their child-sized plastic chairs and desks, where they draw tulips, rainbows, clouds, Pokémon characters and steamboats.
Photograph By Skye Dunlap
Hello Dalí: Austin Sheppard shows off the Pokémon theme he incorporated into his drawing.
Zachery Serface has his head cocked to the side as he colors in the last of an orange-haired person with some stubby crayons. The 8-year-old looks forward to art projects, so he can get his hands and his desk dirty.
A few seats down from Zachery, Alexander Ibrahim draws a rainbow and a fire. "I just imagined it," says the 8-year-old, who thinks his drawings resemble the Tony Hawk wheels on his skateboard. And 7-year-old Elizabeth Wiliams was inspired by the sunny sky, and happily drew a sun wearing black sunglasses.
Adams generated the art docents program through the monthly PTA newsletter, attracting volunteers like nurse Jessica Cowherd and Rowe, who has a BA in art. Docents aren't required to have a background in art, or a child attending WGES--just a desire to teach enthusiastic young artists.
Debbie Kelly stands back during art lessons and lets the kids take over. Kelly believes putting art projects into the hand of children gives those who struggle with math and reading something to be proud of. "It gives them the ability to identify themselves in their own artwork."
Using an art curriculum created by the Palo Alto Union School District, students get a package of art projects and art history. Kids are taught through slides and lectures about famous art and artists, and they work with clay, watercolors and crayons.
In the beginning, Adams had a little trouble getting her potential Rembrandts to flex their imaginations. The children couldn't grasp the possibility of a blue horse flying with angel wings, a person with pink hair or an upholstered chair with a human face. "It took a while for them to open up to something that's not real," Adams says.
The art veteran hopes to spread the art revival to every first- through third-grade class by next fall.
"I watch kids put their heart into it," Adams says. "Just watching them discover for themselves that art is not just drawing on paper."
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
