Dan's Papers - March 13, 2009 - Art Commentary

The Student Art Festival opening at Guild Hall on Saturday is a valued local institution, and well it should be: visual art programs give validity to the importance of art in the public and private curriculum by playing an essential role. Put simply, such programs don't follow the mandate, "No child left behind," nor do they require standardized tests in English and math for credit.

Even so, classes in painting, drawing and filmmaking, for example, teach cognitive skills - especially valuable for learning disabled students who have high right brain functioning. In other words, kids can learn a lot about math from the visual arts.

Films have been added to the student art exhibition in recent years, but are not always accessible except at a special one-time-only screening. They deserve to be seen and appreciated along with the excellent display of mosaics, sculptures, photographs, ceramics and all matter of media at the two annual student shows (grades K-8; 9-12).

This year's movie entries are as varied as the works in the visual arts category in terms of style, form (from documentaries to fiction), subject matter (from surfing to suicide) and technique (from long takes to concise editing). Despite similarities, however, the film process is much more complicated than a painting's, and it often takes more collaboration.

It's obvious in this group of films that collaboration between the art teacher and other students was not only successful, but also a good learning experience - the kind of experience that a student could rarely obtain from a math or English assignment.

But we also can't forget the imagination and creativity that films foster in ways that are astounding. Take, for example, the projects done by grades 2-4 at the Springs School:

"Drawing Dragons" by Ace Albertini (which showed good drawing skills and special effects); interviews with "Bus Drivers" by Tiffany Gutama; students with "Freckles" by Maddie Schenck and Nina Gonzalez; and pupils with "Bikes" by Isabella Aguero (assisted by Maria Chavez and Madison Hollman). Such interviews were charming portraits of everyday life, seen in a different, creative way.

The familiar worlds of Montauk and the beach were also seen in a creative way with "Taste of Sunshine," by Katie Hoffman (Chapin School), and "How to Surf," by Claire Belhumeur, Tali Friedman, Isabella Swanson and Alexis Vafgas. There were other documentaries of local color, including "Wild Life in My Backyard," by Brenden Farrel, and "Niagara Falls," by Nina Gonzalez (not exactly local, but still creative).

Springs School also contributed all the films made in the Middle School, mostly featuring classroom projects like "Yoga," by Kattie Fragola, "Smoking is No Joke," by Nico Ciro and Travis Santiago," and "Pumpkin Carving," by Freddy Dayton. The imaginative use of pumpkins and puppets in the last two films was also a good exercise in the visual arts. Finally, from Springs, "All The Lonely People," by Sage Gibbons, was an ambitious satire on diverse songs by the Beatles. It was the only fictional work entered from Middle School and showed a good command of filmic technique.

Entries from high school students showed more diversity in subject matter, including the moving documentary "Sean Rising," by Alexa Barret from the Ross School, and the semi-animated "Crimson Awakening," also by Barret, a most creative movie about art itself. Three films from Mattituck delved into the emotional life of teenagers, a difficult, but brave and sensitive, theme to take on: "Recovery," by Lee Carlson, "No Way Out," by Moggy Vincigverra, and "Abdication," by Dallas Dodge.

These films can be seen at Guild Hall on March 14 at 4 p.m. A reception for the High School Student Art Exhibition is from 2-4 p.m. Call 631-324-0806 for information.