Lower School Mounts Interactive Art Exhibition

Every April the Art Center Gallery comes alive with art works made by lower school students. Bright, bold, and playful, it is the exhibit that emphatically announces the start of spring and the one that makes us want to be young artists again.  Art Teachers, Jess Grisafi and Alia Tahlvidaran, shepherd these creative and agile minds along into all realms of sophisticated thinking about how art is made and why it matters.  This year Grisafi and Tahvildaran created an interactive art exhibition that offers visitors two experiences of the art works: original art on display in the gallery and an online gallery of student work and their process.  Linking these on line sites to a scan-able QR code, visitors to the gallery can use their  smart phones to view additional content. When asked about where the idea came from Grisafi noted, "The QR codes were Alia's brilliant idea!  We have many online galleries of student art work and process posted on Smug Mug.  The photographs tells stories, and evoke conversations about the students' ideas, techniques and experiences in the art room.  Our hope with the QR codes, is to create an additional avenue for families to connect to these images."  Tahvildaran notes, "The LS Art Exhibit shows the beautiful finished pieces of artwork, but in a way the artwork is the final chapter of an eventful, dynamic process. After watching videos, looking at images, reading stories, engaging in discussions, and seeing demonstrations, our students begin to create. When children create artwork they often sing, talk aloud about what they are making, or work quietly with intense focus. The QR codes were meant to give visitors to the LS Art Exhibit a behind-the-scenes tour of the creative magic happening in the art rooms every day—the process that leads to the product."