Undaunted by virus, KPMS arts club collaborates on a Zoom mural
EDITOR’S NOTE: While Hugh McMIllan is recovering from an eye ailment, some of his friends and community partners are pitching in to keep Kids Corner going. This week’s column is by Molly Dutry.
For the month of January, I had the pleasure of teaching Key Peninsula Middle Schools after-school art club. This club is funded and put on by Two Waters Art Alliance and coordinated by Stephanie Flintoff. Due to Covid-19 and the school closures, KPMS’s after-school art has been operating on Zoom. Stephanie delivers supplies for each class to the student’s home and helps facilitate the program on Tuesday afternoons.
“It was wonderful to see these students excited and engaged in this project” Stephanie told me.
For this 5-week class, I wanted to facilitate a project that was collaborative and community-based for the youth. I decided that it would be possible for us to create a community mural by dividing an image up into 12 parts, giving each student a piece of the mural to work on at home.
As a class, we decided on a garden theme and drew out the image idea together.
“At the beginning, people were questioning the project, but once everyone saw how the whole thing worked together and we started collaborating, everyone’s ideas were shown,” said Marisol Torres Alcantar, a freshman PHS.
Each student then received their specific part and worked on transferring their image to the canvas. They were given room to let their ideas flourish, as long as the theme was met. Once our sketches were finished, we spent three classes painting together over Zoom.
“It was really fun because we all got to put our artistic minds together and create a beautiful painting,” said Abigayel Hone, a 6th-grader at KPMS.
For many of these students, art club is an creative outlet they do not get during the school day.
Kiley Brown, a 7th-grader at KPMS, says, “Art Club gives you the chance to try new things and show your skills off” and added that “people from art club are talented and unique.” Lillian George, a 6th-grader at KPMS, says “art club is helpful because it gives me space to be creative and when I grow up I want to be an animator.” Sixth-grader Christian Alpers says “Art club is a good way to express my artistic talent during Covid-19.”
Covid-19 has changed the way many of us live our lives.
Stephanie Flintoff has found “facilitating this program during this pandemic to have its difficulties, but it has been very valuable and rewarding for me and the kids.”
I strongly believe that this program is truly beautiful because it allows students to work on collaborative projects that are tangible and hands on versus the digital world, we find all of ourselves in today.
Sunnycrest Nursery in Lakebay has graciously offered to display this mural for us. We hope to have it up in early spring.
This story was originally published March 3, 2021 at 5:30 AM.