Demons Beware! You’re In For A Scare!

By Shannon Hicks

October is the best time of year to appreciate Mother Nature at her most colorful best, with the colors changing on the leaves making New England one of the hottest tourist attractions in the country. The tenth month of the year also honors a change of season, as the final gasps of summer’s hot days and nights give way to the cooler, crisp days and better-sleeping nights of fall.

Speaking of October’s nights, traditionally this is the time of year when some of the best fables and folkloric tales are spun. Witches and goblins permeate the landscape of storytellers, in settings dotted with black cauldrons, cornstalks and spider webs. Telling ghost stories can be a fun way to pass the evening. Thinking up ways to banish frightening demons can be almost as much fun.

At Newtown Middle School for the last few years, eight grade Gifted Art and Discovery students have been taking part in a Scarecrow Sculpture Contest that has combined learning with self-expression and selfless acts of kindness. Students are challenged by their teachers to do research on scarecrows – their background, purpose, contemporary uses, etc – and expand on the traditional uses of these creatures.

Groups work at home to create larger-than-life-size scarecrow-inspired sculptures, using a variety of materials. The students are to work on their own, asking for adult supervision only when something is to be worked on by a tool run by an adult. The design of the scarecrows is entirely up to the students, as is the presentation. Additionally, teams are allowed to spend no more than $10 on their projects.

While working as teams, the students learn to work cooperatively with partners to achieve extended goals. They also further develop their time management skills both inside and outside of the school setting in order to meet deadlines.

The results of this year’s contest are nearly ready for public display… and the removal of demons both public and private. The final result of the Sculpted Scarecrow Contest is a ten-day public display of each group of students’ efforts in putting together a larger-than-life scarecrow. The sculptures have in past years taken on the forms of scarecrow forms traditional and quite radical, everything from a conventional cornfield-located, flannel-shirt-wearing, straw-hat-resting figure to creations that look like comic book superheroes, fairy tale monsters and robots, even gardeners or farm animals.

Students have been working since September 8, when teachers John Vouros, Claudia Clancy and Sally Harris announced the contest. Working as individuals or in small groups since then, the eighth graders have broken into just over 20 groups to create this season’s works of art.

Next Saturday morning, rain or shine, those 20+ scarecrows will take up residence on the front lawn of Newtown Middle School. The figures will then remain on display through – appropriately – Sunday, October 31. During that time, the public is invited to visit the middle school to enjoy the students’ creations, and to also take part in the final phase of the annual event.

Once people decide which of the scarecrows on view is their favorite, the public is invited to vote for that scarecrow. Ballots are being published in this week’s Newtown Bee, and will again appear in next week’s Bee. Extra ballots will also be available at the school.

Each vote costs $1. There is no limit to the number of votes each person makes, as long as each vote is accompanied a corresponding dollar.  Votes are to be turned in to the Bee Publishing Co. front office, at 5 Church Hill Road in Newtown. On Monday, November 1 – the end of the voting period – the votes will be tallied and the three groups that received the highest number of votes will be announced.

At that time, not only will the names of the 1999 Sculptured Scarecrow Contest be made public, but the students in the winning groups will then have the honor of making a monetary donation to the charity of their choice. In past years, the decision of which charity a group would be helping was given as much discussion time as the original plans of sculpture creation and construction.

“They’re all thrilled, there’s no question about that,” Discovery teacher John Vouros said this week.

“Some of them have already decided what charities they’re going to donate to.”

Earlier this week, one of the middle school groups spent some time working on its creation and invited The Bee along for a sneak preview. On Tuesday, October 12, Tyler Hull and Steve Truitt went to Tyler’s house after school to work a bit on their sculpture, which is an ode to Marie Antoinette. The boys’ third group member, Sean Rawson, had soccer practice that afternoon, but has also been involved in each step of research, planning and construction.

“We were discussing ideas one day during Discovery, and we came up with cutting a scarecrow’s head off,” Steve said.

“I’m surprised no one came up with this before,” Tyler added, while the boys worked on putting their creation together for an early demonstration. “We wanted to do something different.”

Steve, Tyler and Sean have been working on their sculpture – which will scare away any demons of the French royalty when they are finished – and said this week their group was “almost done.” There were a few little things to take care of, like making sure “Marie’s” shoes would stay on or that her back had the correct arch so that it looks like she is crouching down, preparing her head and neck for the guillotine, but overall the project is obviously nearing completion.

While Steve and Tyler were more than willing to discuss and show off their sculpture this week, most of the work all of the groups are doing will remain top secret until next weekend. At that point, Newtown’s residents will be invited to once again admire the creativity of some of its younger populace. Newtown’s demons, on the other hand, had better get ready to go back into hiding.