By Jim Bloch
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child,” Pablo Picasso once said.
Picasso envied the unabashed enthusiasm of child artists, their strange perspectives, the seemingly random changes they made in the normal sizes and colors of people and objects in their work, their lack of fear and their freedom from artistic convention.
Those characteristics are on display in the St. Clair Art Association’s annual Elementary School Student Art Exhibit, which opened in the Alice W. Moore Center for the Arts on Feb. 25 and runs through March 6. The art center is in Riverview Plaza in downtown St. Clair. The show features the work of about five dozen students in grades kindergarten through fifth. The SCAA held a reception for the young artists and their families Feb. 28, 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Gearing fourth grader Graham Vogel and two other students each composed a third of an elongated bunny that featured a striped bug-like belly, long orange tiger-striped legs and four sets of striped arms and paws.
Pine River first grader Harleen Shea painted straggly pines against a colorful, surging Northern Lights sky amid a snowstorm.
Pine River fourth grader Thomas Shubnell used colored chalk to render a big-bellied snowman peering down over his bulbous body at the viewer.
Classmate Joshua Schindler painted an elegant stand of birch trees against a sunrise sky.
Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves. Belle River third grader Jessalyn Atkins painted a happy dog in a winter sweater dotted with hearts.
Pine River fourth grader Scarlet Muldermans had one of the few black-and-white compositions in the show, a long-necked, big-eyed, sharp-lipped girl who appeared to be the cousin of Wednesday from the Addams family.
Speaking of monstrous families, Pine River third grader Tatum Shaw used watercolors and crayons to fashion a midnight blue haunted home for an Addams-esque family, complete with a giant snake slithering from one of two turrets, two black bats against a bright yellow moon, stunted black trees, a boarded-up window, a tiny pumpkin in a top hat, a ghost rising from the cemetery next door, all of it against a stormy sky and a warning: Do Not Enter.
Viewers peered down the throat of a Peanuts-like character singing Christmas carols in a snow flurry at the top of her lungs by Pine River second grader Lucy Roberts.
Gearing second grader Amelia Treadway’s ridiculously happy girl in a broadly striped smock wagging her pink wings, about to elevate against the purple sky, earned her a place on the program cover. By leaving the girl’s mouth white, matching her eyes and teeth, Treadway created the impression of bright ecstatic light pouring out of the girl’s head.
Three art teachers worked to help hone the students’ skills: Twila Wayt at Pine River Elementary, Gearing Elementary and St. Clair Middle School; Leslie Struyk at Pine River Elementary; and Dana White at Belle River Elementary.
The art association sees participation in the arts as a way to help children communicate, problem-solve, grow intellectually, exercise self-discipline, foster creativity, enhance cross-cultural understanding and strengthen communities.
One of the quandaries that the young artists will face is how to hang onto their unfettered creativity.
“Every child is an artist,” Picasso said. “The problem is staying an artist as you grow up.”
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
