This Thurs. the Third Grade wooden sculptures go on display in the library. Please stop in and see them! These works show a great diversity of subject matter and style. Very little material was cut or trimmed. Most of the work was put together with the available pieces combined with imagination, thinking about balance, form, and about creating a work that is interesting from all sides.
There are many opportunities to see three dimensional works locally, from monuments to the annual sculpture show at Chesterwood and from Sculpture Now, which will be putting work in Lenox and Hinsdale this year. There is also ArtOmi’s gorgeous sculpture park, along with smaller venues tucked around these hills. Letting your children see sculpture in person may be inspirational. Perhaps you can start your own family sculpture park in your yard?
Lower School art students sketch every week. Often they sketch a person sitting across from them at the table. We always dicuss really observing the features of the other person and making sure the sketch has details that portray an individual. The two sketches above are done by a first grader. Both sketches are actually of the same student. This child has really taken our lessons on sketching to heart and is drawing what he sees in the face of his classmate. It’s amazing to see this development in just a few months. Enjoy!
A couple of weeks before our Christmas break, Ian Evans (the son of John Evans, BCD’s school psychologist ) came to an electronic music class to talk about a project that he has been involved with over the past couple of years. Ian is an old friend of mine and is a gifted keyboardist and more recently, producer and composer. He has been going to Haiti on a regular basis to seek out musicians and vocalists to collaborate with and produce recordings with them. His method has been to work with friends in the U.S. to create the instrumental tracks, and then to go to Haiti to find people to record the singing and free styling on top of that. He has a portable recording studio that consists of a MacBook and a microphone plus interface (that all run off of the computer’s battery), and he takes it to the streets to record the vocals. He literally meets people everywhere he goes that are willing to put on a pair of headphones, choose their favorite backing track, and just start singing or rapping right on the spot.
The music that Ian played for us was incredible, a mixture of modern hip hop, funk, and hints of the island styles which are native to the Caribbean, with very inspired vocal parts. Participants range from young kids to experienced and recognized artists from Haiti. Ian pointed out that since there is a low literacy rate in this poor nation, people generally rely on their verbal communication and are very quick with words as well as having the ability to absorb a lot of information from the spoken word. They speak a language that is called creole, a blend of French and African dialects that has evolved into their own language. It was hard to interpret what was being sung in the recordings that Ian played for us, but we really enjoyed the music and Ian related the basic content of the songs.
The idea is that some of the interested students who take the electronic music class can work on compositions with the intention that they may be used for Ian’s project, and hopefully will have vocals from the streets of Haiti added to them. We have taken the past three weeks to form three groups of four students each to collaborate on tracks to send to Ian for this project. So far the raw materials for the three pieces have been recorded and we will be spending the next two classes learning how to arrange, mix, and master the tracks. Then we will email the audio files to Ian down in Haiti and he will take them and add them to his collection of backing music, at which point, a lucky Haitian will hopefully select a BCD track to sing to. A true international collaboration!
On Wednesday during Flex Block, the fifth grade theater co-curricular students presented some of the work they’ve explored in their two-week theater workshop with Meg Agnew.
Improv based, they played games and increased their self-awareness and ability to work as an ensemble. The audience of parents and middle school students thoroughly enjoyed watching their peers have so much fun on Furey’s stage!
The Upper School co-curricular theater is deep into rehearsing an adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The ensemble of 7th, 8th, and 9th graders are exploring life in the middle ages, the meaning of a pilgrimage journey, and the courageous process of working on a collaborative piece. The playwright, Jessica Litwak, will be attending rehearsal in January to work with the students and will also attend the production in February.
Creating the characters, costumes, and design concept has been challenging and the talents and creative impulses of this group are evident.
The 8th grade is moving into medieval history in class which will coincide with the production and hopefully help them make connections with the material now and in the future.
This is a great opportunity for the kids to explore this rich material in an accessible and fun way.
The shows are at the Winthrop Theater on February 23rd, 24th, and 25th at 7PM.
Last year Ms. Tumenas, Dr. Lederman and Mrs. Hilliard worked with the sixth grade to create this video project about life in the Berkshires and at BCD. It was created for the website, www.bridgesofpeaceandhope.info/ It has not been uploaded to their site yet, but we hope it will be included soon!
We are beginning to build some bridges of peace and hope with the AVJ School in Haiti. We are in the first stages of doing some collaborative music projects. The two schools are anxious to get to know each other and so we are forwarding this video to them, so that they can learn more about us.
Grades 1-6 came together on Friday to enjoy some holiday songs. Thank you to Ms. Clausen for sending us this video clip. Have a wonderful time with your families over break!
Enjoy the video of our music concert. Thank you to Michael B. and Tyler S. their expert videotaping. A special thank you to Mrs. Tumenas for her wonderful editing.
First graders in my art class are working on geometric designs with their initials. The project is student generated and a big hit with the Alligators and the Bats. Last week while working, students spontaneously started singing the BCD school song. With Thanksgiving fast approaching I am thankful for the confluence of art and music in the Lower School Art Studio. Enjoy!
www.moma.org/interactives/artsafari/ This link is for an interactive site at the Museum of Modern Art website. For young children and their parents, this is a fun site and, among other things, an opportunity to look at famous works of art and practice learning how to talk about arworks.
Here at BCD we also try to learn the language of art- making art, learning art principles and elements, and talking about art. For instance, the Third Graders have learned about Matisse, Picasso, and Calder and their work so far this year. They have also made edible color wheels.
Fourth graders have explored figures, drawing self portraits and making figure sculptures.They have also made sculptures for Thanksgiving Soup decorations.
Fifth graders have been drawing to share information about themselves.
In the Sixth grade, they have explored what makes a successful landscape picture, as well as the mediums of collage, watercolors, and watercolor pencils. They have studied the Hudson River School, and gone on a field trip to Olana, former home of Frederic Church.
The Foundations class has been learning about drawing- mirror images, negative space, shading, and design techniques as well as relative sizes and compostition.
The Drawing, Painting and Sculpture class also worked with drawing, looking at relative sizes, composition, and shading, as well as ways to use line to describe shapes. They have also had an assignment that they could fulfill in any medium.
Classes also spend time looking at and talking about the work they have done. They learn to share ideas, experiment, and think of new ways to put thing together. The arts are enriching for all our students!
Please drop into the library to see the 4th Grade Sculpture Show, , and visit the Berkshire Museum to see the 3rd Grade’s tree in the Festival of Trees.
Also, a reminder- Members of The Arts Dept. are taking turns posting weekly items. Please click the Arts at the top of the MyBCD screen. It has been hard to find, but we hope we have corrected that.
This Thurs. the Third Grade wooden sculptures go on display in the library. Please stop in and see them! These works show a great diversity of subject matter and style. Very little material was cut or trimmed. Most of the work was put together with the available pieces combined with imagination, thinking about balance, form, and about creating a work that is interesting from all sides.
