Continuing with our middle school articulation piece, Thursday, Feb. 26, Gordon Engelhard took some A.P. art students back to their alma mater (Jerling Middle School) to meet with junior high art students and discuss their portfolios.
Student Haneen Abed said of the experience “it was tiring speaking to so many classes.”
When asked if she’d do something like this again she replied “uum yeah, I mean it was good to see my old teachers, and I think it was important. I didn’t even know Sandburg had an art department until my sophomore year.” Now Haneen is an A.P. art student who won an honorable mention at this years Scholastic Art Show. “The eighth graders didn’t know how much stuff Sandburg has to offer, all the clubs, they didn’t know we had a bass fishing club.”
Annie Connolly said she found the experience of explaining her artistic process and works, and the students responses were great.
Sheila Walsh had mixed feelings at first of the experience of returning to her school, but loved going back to the art classroom and seeing Mr. Murphy. Early on, she connected to a student who was really excited about taking a painting class next year at Sandburg. At one point, this student got out some of his water colors to show his works to Sheila.
Sheila said she found the experience tough at first, explaining her art work to the students, especially the boy athletes. But as she pressed on, she found ways of explaining her process of creating and the feeling she gets from making, by comparing that to the feelings the boys might get from the experience of playing sports. Sheila thought at this point, it seemed to go more smoothly.
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