Students’ art will shine in district’s collection
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

The artistic creations of Joie Ha, Cady Hardy and Alyssa Seminerio (l-r) will travel to each school in the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District and then become part of the district’s permanent collection of student artwork.

MANALAPAN — Six new works of art by pupils will be added to the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District’s permanent collection this year.

"Every school year since 1986, one student’s work of art has been selected from each school in our district," said Jessica Gent, art supervisor. "The work of art is framed and the artist is honored by the Board of Education in special presentation."

Gent said the collection is moved from one school to another in the district, during the year. Each work of art is then returned to its home school where it is placed on exhibit as part of the permanent collection.

At a recent board meeting the pupils talked about their art work.

PHOTOS BY DAVE BENJAMIN Howard Chen, Rachel Ruden, Kevin Yu and Rosie Vaccaro (l-r) display their works of art.

"When I drew the picture ‘American Gothic’ I felt relaxed," said third-grader Howard Chen of Clark Mills School. "I was trying to express my feelings by the expression on the picture."

Marge Chandler is Howard’s art teacher.

Joie Ha, a third-grader at the Milford Brook School, said her picture was a self-portrait called "Me—As an Alien."

"During this lesson I learned about the artist Chuck Close," Joie said. "I also learned how to draw a portrait using guidelines. I think that learning how to use guidelines made it easier for me to draw the face."

Joie said she also learned to use pastel chalk and blending the chalk made her portrait look really "cool," although it "wasn’t really easy to blend the colors."

Joie’s art teacher is Tricia Heagele.

Taylor Mills School second-grader Alyssa Seminerio learned from her art teacher Roberta Schafler about Paul Cézanne. Alyssa then created her own still life picture of a fruit basket.

"In my picture, I had a pineapple, an orange, an apple and a pear," she said. "The fruit is in the bowl that is dark pink."

Alyssa had fun working on her project and noted that it was a still life because "the fruit doesn’t move when you paint it."

Lafayette Mills School fifth-grader Rosie Vaccaro learned about her inspiring artist from art teacher Joanne Bale.

Rosie said, "Faith Ringgold is known for her paintings, masks and story quilts. She creates large colorful works of art that tell stories in words and pictures inside a quilted border."

Rosie said she chose "Groovin’ High" for her drawing because it was so colorful and full of action.

"I enjoy art because it’s fun and I love to draw," the pupil said. "Drawing is one of my favorite subjects."

Under the eye of art teacher Joy Koenig, Pine Brook School sixth-grader Rachel Ruden created "Golden Monkey."

Rachel said she began creating the piece "just for fun," but as her work progressed she realized it had "possibilities."

Rachel said she worked on her picture from September 2002 through May 2003.

"It took so long," she said, "[because] I only worked on it for 40 minutes a week and sometimes I couldn’t even work on it that much.

"I tried to make it as realistic as I could, not making the fur too perfect," Rachel said. "I worked on trying to give the picture a natural beauty, as it wasn’t a picture at all but a photograph of this scene."

Cady Hardy, a sixth-grader at the Wemrock Brook School, was asked by teacher Barbara Weiss to make an Egyptian etching.

Cady said her picture had four parts; an Egyptian holding a bird, representing how Egyptians have a grasp on life and are in control; an Egyptian cross, representing Egyptians and their leaders; a bird protecting its eggs, representing the fact that they had to protect themselves and they have little or no control over their lives; and a group of papyrus trees, representing different groups in Egyptian society.

Cady explained how she created her picture by drawing, etching the main objects and then etching the background.

Kevin Yu, an eighth-grader at the Manalapan Englishtown Middle School, said he received an assignment from art teacher Nancy Elphick to create a work based on the old west.

"I wanted to produce something that captured the essence of the time period," Kevin said.

While searching for ideas, he came across numerous pictures of bison.

"It was then and there that I decided that I wanted that to be the focus of my picture," the artist said. "I was out to show the grace and brutality of animal life on the plains."

Kevin said he created a rough sketch of two buffalo clashing horns and then completed his work of art, which left him with feelings of satisfaction and pride.