By Lora Cawelti, Program Manager featuring Teaching Artist Nicole Fisher
This year, P.S. ARTS expanded into all eleven elementary schools in the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) as a part of SMMUSD’s efforts to provide arts equity to all of their elementary students. One of the most exciting results of the expansion was the addition of talented new Teaching Artists like Nicole Fisher, Malibu parent and artist, to the P.S. ARTS faculty. Last week, Juan Cabrillo Elementary School’s visual arts residency with Ms. Fisher culminated with an exhibition of student work.
Ms. Fisher transformed the Juan Cabrillo auditorium into a beautiful gallery and worked with the students to curate their own art. Each student went through their portfolio to pick a favorite piece from the entire year’s body of work to be mounted and displayed at the art show. Parent Katie Anderson said, “It was a beautiful expression of each student – the works were so meaningful.”
The showing included watercolor flowers inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe, pointillism paintings, and “Cabrillo’s Ceramic City” with contributions from every student in the school. Ceramic creations included buildings, bridges, skyscrapers, markets, traffic lights, planes, cars, trucks, a skate park — even a mouse coming out of a trashcan! In addition, the exhibit featured the 5th grade project entitled “Art & Sole.” For this annual rite-of-passage piece, students bring in a shoe that represents who they are. Then, they mount the shoe on a bookend and embellish it to convey a transitional time in their lives: moving from elementary school to middle school.
Experiencing the art show as a family is an annual highlight for the Juan Cabrillo Community. Dawn Walker loves seeing “each child discussing (with parents and friends) their art and the artist or theme that inspired them with genuine pride and enthusiasm.” Another highpoint of the show was the student portrait gallery. After visiting a Chuck Close exhibit at the Weisman Gallery at Pepperdine University and working with guest artist Johanna Spinks, students explored portraits of themselves and others with photography, collage, and painting.
Ms. Fisher makes viewing the student exhibition even more meaningful by adding an “art scavenger hunt” to the event. PTA President Desi Bradley shared, “I really loved the art show scavenger hunt; doing it with my daughter challenged us to more deeply explore the show. It was fun, informative, and got us to think about really seeing each piece of art.”
Congratulations to Ms. Fisher and the young artists of Juan Cabrillo Elementary!
P.S. ARTS’ Visual Arts program at Juan Cabrillo is made possible by SMMEF and the Juan Cabrillo PTA.
