Hundreds of Student-Artists on Display at Exhibit
The annual DMPS Art Exhibit is at Capital Square in downtown Des Moines through March 1.
The annual DMPS Art Exhibit opened last night at Capital Square featuring the work of 734 students. In 2012, that number was 272. In a word, wow!
Every school in the district is represented. And every grade, from K-12. On opposite sides of one display panel were a rather abstract painting by a Phillips Elementary kindergartener with the rather artistic name of Jousseppe Castillo-Moro and a penetrating charcoal sketch of an eye by Hoover High School’s Tuan Trong that could have been looking right through the panel at Jousseppe’s piece.
There was an opportunity for viewers to contribute to a community piece that was being constructed in the vast atrium out of post-it notes. Upstairs an assortment of 3D works was enclosed behind glass. It included a cardboard village designed and constructed by Lincoln students Jonnae Patterson, Cooper Worth, Alexis Perez, Israel Salcedo-Nevarez and Isaac Scott. There were a post office, a candy store, a water tower, a barber shop…it was a brown little town (given that their teacher is Sarah Brown could this have been Brown Town?) except for the red, white and blue pole outside of Scotty’s, the barber shop.
But the point is not to single any particular creation out. This is not a juried art competition. It is a celebration of visual art with some refreshments, opening remarks from School Board President Rob Barron, DMPS Superintendent Dr. Tom Ahart and district Visual Arts Coordinator Sarah Dougherty and a string quartet from North High thrown in for good measure at the opening reception.
“We got in here yesterday (Wednesday) morning at 8:00,” said Dougherty, the event curator. “By 10:30 all of the artwork had been delivered by teachers and by 4:30 we had everything hung and arranged.” Nothing to it – except all of the creative juices that have been churning all year before mixing and exploding in the annual burst of color, Brown Town excepted, that always comes right on the heels of the annual district science fair.
The show will run through March 1 at Capital Square (the atrium is open each day from 5:30 AM to 8:30 PM). It’s a beautiful way to pass the dingy rest of February.
