Students exhibit their work at Millbrook School’s Warner Gallery
Published on March 9th, 2013 | by Carola Lott
Rooster by Elizabeth Lowe at Millbrook School.
The new show at the Millbrook School’s Warner Gallery – the Advanced and Honors Student Art Exhibit – is an eclectic collection of some 60 paintings, photographs and ceramics. Students from each class were asked to submit a work and describe what they were trying to express and why it was valid.
Chair of the art department, Bill Hardy, provided several guidelines the students could choose to follow. One instructed them to depict a simple object like a paper bag but from several perspectives to give it a sense of motion. They were to begin the image with graphite and then enhance it using one or two other mediums.
Work by Holland Harvard.
In another exercise students were given an envelope containing torn scraps of paper. They were to create a pleasing composition using all the bits. After gluing their arrangement on a sheet of paper, they were asked to connect the pieces with a pencil. Finally they were to use oil paints to bring everything together in a coherent statement. In one of the more interesting works in the show, Taylor Harris used this method to depict the head and shoulders of a bearded man surrounded by abstract splotches of primary colors delineated with touches of black.
Many of the students chose to devise their own approach. Among the photographs were several taken with pin hole cameras made from a variety of objects including a box of Altoids by Reagan Brown, a canister of Harney’s Cherry Blossom Tea by Marilyn Dedrick, and a child’s book bag by Emma Feitelson who exhibited two silver gelatin prints she had taken with what must have been a rather unwieldy camera. Zac Schymura’s had rearranged his photograph of the Flagler Chapel so the steeple hung at an angle to the building. It called to mind some of David Hockney’s images.
There were a number of remarkable pieces of pottery some of them fired in the school’s wood kiln. An amazing four foot ceramic ice cream cone by Dustin Sloan is now on its way to Houston having been accepted at Indicta, a judged ceramic program. Of the 1,000 entries submitted from around the country only 100 are chosen for the event. The winners will be announced later.
My favorite work in the show was Elizabeth Lowe’s painting of a large white rooster with a scarlet comb. The painting, mounted on a wooden background beneath a small peaked roof, has been covered with chicken wire. One imagines it is the chicken house that is the rooster’s domain.
The Advanced and Honors Student Art Exhibit will be on display in the Warner Gallery through March. The Gallery is open 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Monday-Friday and 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Saturdays.
Tags: Millbrook
About the Author
Carola Lott Carola Lott, managing editor, has lived here in Millbrook for the past 30 years. She has worked as a freelance writer and photographer for a number of magazines. Working at The Millbrook Independent has given her the chance to meet new people and broaden her horizons. She feels that the best thing about Millbrook is the beautiful countryside that remains miraculously unspoiled. She can be reached at carolalott@gmail.com.
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