The kids are all right

Seeing work by kindergartners next to work by high school seniors dramatically shows the learning that takes place every year.

Stowe Elementary School art teacher Jen Volansky says she can see the same qualities in work by some of her older students as she saw in their work as kindergartners, which makes her better able to pinpoint where they’ve grown.

“Everything a kindergartner does, they love,” Volansky said, but don’t take that to mean small children don’t put thought into their work. There are no smeared handprints in Volansky’s classes.

She points out a wall of robot images constructed from found items. One features parts from a camera; another, a cracked compact disc.

“They’re drawing from observation,” Volansky said of the sketches that accompany the found objects.

Later, Volansky shows off sketched animals, taken outdoors and photographed in their “natural habitats” by some older elementary school students.

“When you get older, you start to question” your work and your thought processes, Volansky said; it’s something she starts to see in her students in the fourth grade, on average. “They ask themselves more questions as they create.”

It saddens her to see those questions turn to a shadow of self-doubt in some students as they grow, but no matter what questions went into the process, the elementary school students at the art show are eager to show off the finished products.

Lydia Durand, 7, a second-grader at Stowe Elementary School, showed off a drawing she did of an ant home, featuring a carrot as a lamp.

She got the idea by imagining what it would be like to be the size of an ant.

This is Lydia’s first year in the Helen Day Student Art Show. “I feel like an artist,” she said, although she was a little nervous before the show officially opened.

Sydney McElligott, 8, also a second-grader at Stowe Elementary, was enthusiastic about her collage, reminiscent of a kaleidoscope or a stained-glass window. She used black paint to outline geometric shapes, which she filled in with bright colors.

No matter how many questions students learn to ask themselves, their creativity is still the spark that starts the engine. Witness 11-year-old Logan Wilson, a fifth-grader at Stowe Elementary. His mask made of bark was too big to fit in the display at the Helen Day Art Center, because he also included a breastplate, but he took a lot of pride in describing the piece, which included other relics he found outside.

Meanwhile, the middle school displays prominently feature a collection of treehouses made from wooden sticks and hot glue. This is Stowe Middle School art teacher Jenn Anthony’s first year working on the show, and she thinks the show itself plays a role in the students’ growth.

“I think specifically in a gallery setting, in a professional space, it looks really cool. It’s one thing to hang it in the cafeteria” and another to give students’ art professional play, Anthony said. It gives younger students the opportunity to get inspired by checking out what their older schoolmates are up to.

On the other end of the student spectrum is Stowe High art teacher Kate Crouse. Between ninth grade and 12th grade, there are noticeable changes in students’ art, but they’re subtler than the leaps sometimes made by younger students. Students’ work evolves in terms of content and technique, and Crouse responds by giving them more freedom to choose what they want to work on.

Senior Ciera Spagolla, 17, used her camera in one of Crouse’s photography classes to capture people’s reactions to being told they are beautiful. She’d start by taking a few portrait shots and then casually compliment the person and quickly snap the effect of her words.

Spagolla feels good about her last student art show at Helen Day Art Center. This is her favorite project, she said, and she thinks it embodies her growth as an artist.

“She’s really matured,” Crouse said proudly. “It’s been fun to see.”

Rachel Moore, executive director of the Helen Day Art Center, believes the student art show is a critical step in inculcating life skills in kids and teens.

“Part of what we’re trying to do is build confidence in children,” Moore said. “Seeing their work on that wall gives it validity.”

Moore said students gain from showing their work, even if they don’t go on to become artists. They learn to see the world through a critical and constructive lens, which can help them find creative solutions to problems.

“They’re incredible,” Moore said of the student artists. “I’m really overwhelmed at how creative and thoughtful the artwork is.”