Rye Country Day School's Spring Art Show Opens

Rye Country Day students will get to showcase their artistic talents for the next month with today's opening of the school's annual Spring Art Show.

The show, which features the work of students grades K through 12, will remain on display through May 14.

Every visual arts student from the lower, middle and upper schools has at least one piece of art in the show, which adorns the lobby of the Dunn Performing Arts Center. Media include print, photography, paintings, drawings, and sculptural construction. Some of the most interesting pieces in the show include drawings that middle school students created from mirror images of their own names, which are arranged in a quilt-like display, and multiple-media still-lifes representing "warm" or "cool" color families.

Students were also inspired by famous artists, creating Andy Warhol-style prints that repeat one picture or portrait in multiple colors, and labeling black-and-white photographs with quotations in white text on red background in the style of conceptual artist Barbara Kruger.

When the arts faculty mounted and arranged the works, they based each wall display around attention-catching "anchor" pieces, such as the photograph of a shirtless dancer doing a handstand by Janelle McDermoth (AP Studio Art/Photography), or AP Studio Art student Zara Wright's drawing of a mouth holding a pencil, which serves as the logo on the arts show's posters around the school.

The display not only serves as a pleasant backdrop for students on their way to theatre and music classes; it has been incorporated into the curriculum. Lower and middle school students come with their teachers on a "treasure hunt," spending a class period looking for items found in the paintings and photographs.

The RCDS arts program, which offers classes in photography, ceramics, drawing, painting, digital design, and AP Studio Art classes in Drawing, 2-D Design, and 3-D Design (sculpture and ceramics), is unique for its fostering of self-direction., according to Linda Greenhouse, chair of the school's art department.  

"The program encourages each student to express his or her individual view of the world," Greenhouse said. While teachers introduce media to their classes, students select their own subjects, and every photograph, print, and still-life on display is distinct,  fulfilling the objective from the RCDS art department web site: "Artists should think, act and learn in original ways."

Art also allows students to "use that other side of the brain, use their mind independently towards creative ends," Greenhouse said, which enriches the academic experience.

The Spring Art Show is only one part of the Spring Arts Festival at RCDS, which  includes a performance of one-act plays by the drama department and students (Friday, April 30th), and this Saturday's Arts Festival Community Day, which celebrates both arts and diversity with international foods, performances, and faculty-led arts activities for kids, such as Houses for Haiti and Community Handprint. Arts Festival Community Day is open to the wider community.