An Early Start In Art For Wesley Learning Center’s Kindergarteners

By Shannon Hicks

Along with mastering the basics of reading, good manners, the days of the week, and counting, the kindergarten class at Wesley Learning Center can now rattle off the names of their favorite artists. Among those artists are Alexander Calder, Mary Cassatt, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Norman Rockwell, Vincent van Gogh, and Andy Warhol.

They can also name their favorite contemporary artist: Dick McEvoy.

And this year’s kindergarten class added a new artist to the list of those the students at the Sandy Hook-based school have been learning about for a few years: Christo.

Randi Rote’s kindergarten classes have been participating in an intensive curriculum during which students learn about and then replicate the works of well-known artists. They heard stories, studied reproductions of the artists’ work, and even watched a video, Don’t Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A highlight of the program each year is an outing to an art gallery. On March 17 the students went to River Glen Art Gallery (formerly Grey Horse Gallery) in Sandy Hook, where they were welcomed by Mr McEvoy, who lives and works in Newtown. Mr McEvoy spent time with the students, introducing them to his art along with the art of others that are also on view at the gallery.

The students study the work of each artist — 21 artists were studied this year — and then they try their hand at creating original art in the style of each artist.

The culmination of all this work is an annual exhibition of the students’ work, and this year’s big event was held on Friday, April 1. Countless works of art were hung on walls, ceilings (where else would a Michelangelo-style painting go?) and even on countertops.

After a few of the students went into New York City with their parents recently, there was a request to re-create “The Gates,” the orange-hued creation by Christo and Jean-Claude that dominated Central Park (and headlines around the world) earlier this year. The challenge of replicating the outdoor installation was solved when the students created chains of paper using orange construction paper. The chains were then draped from the front entrance of the classroom-turned-art gallery in the shape of an upper case U, with additional links hanging down each side.

Parents and grandparents seemed just as awed with everything else they saw last Friday afternoon. There were black and white photographs paying homage to Ansel Adams, mobiles in the style of Calder, “dot-dot-Seurat” paintings, a large Jackson Pollock mural the class had done as a group, Mardi Gras-style masks, paintings in the impressionistic style favored by Dick McEvoy, Pop Art similar to Andy Warhol’s work, and drawings in the style of the Spanish Surrealist Joan Miró.

Former students of Wesley Learning Center have visited Ms Rote over the years, and she is always tickled when they tell her how much they remember of their art studies. The program also helps children better understand their surroundings.

“I have had Jackson Pollock and Cubism posters hanging in my bedroom for a long time, and now I know what they mean,” Barrett DeYoung said last week.