As a guest of the Mayerson Foundation Service Learning Program, Jan worked for 5 months with Bishop Brossart High School junior class students in Covington, Kentucky. Teacher Suzette Glaab loaned her classroom for the creation of three giant art panels. The workshop included design collaboration based on student sketches, experimentation with recyclable materials crafted into decorative elements, and learning how to plan and execute a large-scale art installation.
Projects – Public Art – Bishop Brossart High School Public Art (2014)
Repurposed aluminum soda cans were used to create silver studs and fish scales on the panel about Community Service.
The students were presented with three versions of color palette to vote on before the workshop began creation of the panels which ranged from 6 to 8 feet tall.
Each phase of design was explained to the students as we progressed through the creative process.
Dylan and Doug Stevens and Suzette Glaab showed up frequently on weekends to help with more complex tasks of carpentry and assembly.
Different design challenges were taken up by individual students. One young artist created a brilliant process for making heartshaped fish scales out of cut aluminum cans.
The completed Community Service panel, ready for installation – three layers of painted plywood with foam core cutouts, rope and aluminum appliques.
Detail of the centerpiece of the Cross is decorated with stars and flowers made from plastic soda bottles and their colored caps, with studs made from the caps and aluminum-can-cut circle insets.
The 8 foot tall Cross featured a raised central disk and paint colors to create a sense of dimensionality to the cross pieces.
Jade took up the challenge of creating symbols to represent all of the favorite clubs in the school, Adam designed and constructed a dimensional book for the center of the Clubs panel.
The Clubs panel challenges included careful gradation painting of the rainbow spiral, crafting of the 3D book, stenciling of the running mustangs, painting of detailed line art in each horse, and hand-making jewels from bottlecaps and glass patties.