Thanks to a connection with Fermata Arts Foundation of Avon and St Rose of Lima School art teacher Meagan Ferriter, student artwork is demonstrating what is “good and positive.”

Ferriter announced in a letter to school families near the start of February that St Rose student artwork was chosen to be included in a traveling art exhibition of children’s art work from around the world. The art was sent out for the exhibition by late February, and for the start of March, children’s artwork from Ukraine was put on display at St Rose, also as part of a Fermata Arts Foundation program.

Children’s art, Ferriter said in a recent phone interview, represents all that is “good and positive” regardless of geopolitics.

According to the Fermata Arts Foundation, its mission is to “aid in the preservation of peace through mutual respect, understanding and cooperation. The model for achieving this is through the synthesis of art, architecture, philosophy, and poetry. The Corporation exists to promote and encourage true intercultural dialogue between countries, through which the representatives of different countries can discover shared values and spiritual commonality.”

Ferriter is also a Newtown artist. She owns Limekiln Studio and has a personal mission to make art, teach art, and create good, as she explains on her website meaganferriter.com. A portion of her art studio’s sales supports her humanitarian projects in Russia and Dominica. Those projects support teaching art to students in both countries, and two students from Dominica have been taking Ferriter’s art classes virtually through EverWonder Children’s Museum in Newtown.

As Ferriter’s communication to St Rose parents shared in early February, Fermata Arts is running an open-ended project called “Peace in the World,” in which student art from schools in Belarus, Latvia, Russia, Bulgaria, Estonia, and Lithuania is included.

“In light of current events in Ukraine, this is an important way to remind us all that children worldwide need adults to find peaceful solutions to grown-up problems,” Ferriter’s e-mail read. It continued, “I would like to have St Rose be part of this project, as I am personally connected to Russia and Eastern Europe after my time spent working in Bashkortostan during my Fullbright Year in Russian orphanages.”

Ferriter selected St Rose student landscape watercolor paintings from fifth to eighth grade students to contribute to the Peace in the World exhibit.

“They were all so good. It was hard to pick,” Ferriter said of the student artwork.

The watercolors were created during a lesson on foreground, middle ground, and background.

While a list of exhibition places is not available, it will be put on display in libraries throughout New England.

Ferriter said she loves the way the St Rose students were able to use the watercolors to create value and “that sense of peace.”

St Rose of Lima School students with art in the traveling exhibit are Tomas Almeida, Alexander Rivera, Charles Mesinger, Siobhan Hall, Cecilia Biasetti, Charlotte Moehring, Adeline Gibowicz, Shivanjali Bhagania, Joseph Monckton, Morgan Riley, Connor Flynn, Alexander Kari, Bernadette Biasetti, and Karina Lam.

Near the start of March, Ferriter was able to announce the Ukrainian student artwork was put on display at St Rose of Lima School, also through a Fermata Arts Foundation program.

“I hung up a collection of children’s art from a school in Ukraine, drawings and paintings from children ages 5 to 16,” Ferriter said in an e-mail to parents. “This art was created in October and November, prior to the Russian invasion, and transported to the US through an organization that I am part of called Fermata Arts. Fermata Arts facilitates the exchange of children’s artwork between Eastern Europe and Russia and the United States as a way to promote peace and international friendship.”

The e-mail later read, “This wonderful Ukrainian (student art) has sent us loving, creative energy through their art, and we are now in turn creating art in my class to send back to their region. I believe art is prayer, so let this exhibit be a message of peace and love for all in this difficult time in history.”

The art was curated by Elena Stepanovna Filanchuk, a library director in Kryvyi Rih City in Ukraine at City Children’s Library, according to St Rose of Lima School.

The St Rose of Lima School student artwork being sent to Ukraine was inspired by stained glass windows.

Education Reporter Eliza Hallabeck can be reached at eliza@thebee.com.