Lobbying For Art Students Exhibit Artful Touch Before Music Takes Over Tonight
The high school artists had a vision. The Opera House lobby - now brick, concrete and carpet - would be full of rustling leaves, glassy ponds, and a quartet playing beneath the boughs.
That, and a tree with a one-eyed, witch-nosed face topping its trunk - a twisted Picasso Popsicle.
“A formal garden,” beamed Lewis and Clark art teacher Dean Lenz. “… the Edward Scissorhands version.”
The Spokane junior and senior honor students teamed with Seattle artist Tim Siciliano, turning the Opera House floor into a psychedelic floral setting. A set from one of those animated Beatles movies. Their own “Mythic Garden” in the shade.
The exhibit portion of the ninth-annual “Festival of the Arts” opens tonight at 7 p.m.
At 7:30, the rest of the Spokane School District’s art and music celebration - chorale, band and string performances - takes the stage inside the Opera House. All told, 500 students are involved from all over Spokane for the free event.
Go. See the garden. Be one with Mother Nature, because she’s wearing Groucho Marx glasses.
On Monday, they prepared. Students wrestled with a circle of pink pumas, paws joined in some kind of high-five ballet. A paper palm tree sat crown-down atop a table. One guy tried to shove wheels onto what looked like a Yugo-sized wagon.
Alicia Smith and Hope Nore from Rogers High School hopped around a pond, its faux water still unpainted and pink. A frog squatted on its pad like a chubby Kermit. Cardboard mushrooms bobbed nearby like old Chinese hats.
Smith surveyed the scene, a flower painted on her face.
“It’s shroom land,” she said.
Cobras surrounded a group from Ferris High. A rotund hybrid between a gargoyle and a cherub watched.
“It’s our bug,” Becky Hemmerling said. “It’s gonna be in our tree … all the bugs are gonna be in there, just kind of chillin’.”
Others wrestled with cardboard. A plump foam head wouldn’t quite fit on top. The staples were too small; the glue gun melted the foam. Juniors Buddy Alexander and Jessica Bradford smiled anyway.
“It’s a Buddha,” Buddy said. “A Buddha Man.”
If it all sounds a little too Age of Aquarius, don’t fret. Students are learning.
“Teamwork,” chants Alexander.
“Working with people you don’t know. People from other schools,” said senior Mike Harmon. “Actually working with your hands, not just reading.”
The conceptual stretches in the artwork are purposeful. Nancy Zupan, district art coordinator, said the assignment was pretty broad: to make “a personal portrait, an interpersonal reflection of them.”
Visiting artist Siciliano thought the whole concept was great - especially “the kid element.”
“As a kid, you have these trucks in your back yard, and it’s your fantasy. Or your sci-fi world. It’s escapist, in a way.”
Siciliano did a garden piece for a Seattle show in ‘95 - only he had two years to make it. The kids only had two days.
“It’s very challenging,” he said. “Not only are you an artist, you’re a carpenter. An architect.”
Soon, the wagon was finished and flipped over, and it turned out to be a lawnmower. The Picasso Popsicle, now upright, squinted tall and green. And Buddha Man had his head.
Buddy Alexander dug it, man.
“It’s like building a piece of yourself.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo