Artists in 6th, 7th and 8th-grade classes showed off their works Thursday night in Marshall Simonds Middle School’s first annual art show.
“I believe this is the first time that the middle school has had a school-wide art show, but the middle school art teachers have shared the work of their students with parents at the Marshall Simonds’ annual Open House night for years,” said George Ratkevich, visual art program coordinator for Burlington Public Schools. “It’s fantastic that they’re doing the school-wide art show, which is over two nights and aligns with the school concerts.” Ratkevich commended middle school art teachers Sarah Baldwin, Lindsay Janco and Lindsay Shepard for their work pulling the exhibit together.
Items exhibited included combination drawings, where students combined two unlikely objects into one single drawing, focusing on similarities in shape or in symbolic connections. Other exhibitions featured digital art, where students used Google Draw on MacBook Airs to create their own modern takes on mosaics.
In one collaborative project, students in Lindsay Janco’s 6th and 7th grade classes took turns painting the school dog, Moose, on a large-scale canvas.
“Seeing it all in one place, seeing the progression between where the kids start at the beginning of the year and the amount of work they’re able to develop, seeing the different ways they’re able to problem-solve, it’s cool to see,” said art teacher Lindsay Shepard. “It’s really cool to be able to see the vast potential.”
The art show is open for two nights, June 1 and June 8, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.