Reception for Student Artwork: Drawing Out, Student Artwork from the Drawing Connections Program

Drawing Out

Student Artwork from the Drawing Connections Program

June 17-22, 2014

Drawing Room I The Lab

Reception: Thursday, June 19, 5-7pm

On view in The Lab from June 17-22, 2014, the exhibition features student artwork from the Drawing Connections program, which pairs practicing artists with teachers in Lower Manhattan public schools to develop projects that relate classroom curricula to exhibitions at The Drawing Center. Now in its tenth year, Drawing Out features group projects by approximately 100 students from four classes in the participating schools of: P.S. 42 Benjamin Altman School, P.S. 130 Hernando Desoto School, Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School, and Broome Street Academy.

At P.S. 42 Benjamin Altman School, third-grade students in Marie DiSilvestro’s class worked with teaching artist Maria Hupfield. Students visited the exhibitionLen Lye, Motion Sketch and learned about how various drawing processes used by Lye, including drawing from observation and “doodling,” embodied and enacted movement. Students created a number of studies in different materials; their final drawings, titledLife Force, are based on their own small “tangible: plant” sculptures by connecting movement, sound, time, light and connecting them with drawn lines and shapes in various colors.

Led by teaching artist Maria Hupfield, second-grade students in April McConnell’s class at P.S. 130 Hernando DeSoto School responded to the exhibitionFerran Adria, Notes on Creativity. They began by understanding how Adria uses sketches, composition and subject matter to create meaning in his everyday life. Students produced a variety of drawings and clay visualizations to use creativity to better understand themselves as learners.

Scott Fowler’s Graphic Design and Illustration class of eleventh graders at Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School, led by teaching artist Kim Charles Kay, was inspired by the work of Lebbeus Woods to address the damage left by Hurricane Sandy. Students looked at Woods’s notebooks, drawings and architectural models which exemplified psychological implications of rebuilding after war and/or natural disasters. Having learned about one point perspective, students built their drawings on images from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Students of James Ifill’s Broome Street Academy Global Studies class visited the exhibitionDeborah Grant, Christ You Know it Ain’t Easy!! armed with the question “Who tells the story?” Reflecting upon Deborah Grant’s work, these high school students discussed the impact of history on their personal stories. They contextualized modernism within WWI and WWII, and created collaged drawings on basswood panels under the guidance of teaching artist, Maria Hupfield.