Artist, students team up in Pelham

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on November 02, 2007

PELHAM - A patch of grass between this town's elementary school and library has blossomed with creative ferment.

Last Friday, Pelham Elementary School sixth-graders, school officials, parents, University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center personnel and an artist-in-residence unveiled an original work of community art.

It's a multicolored, 16-foot wooden work with mobile medallions, looking something like a lifeguard's chair with dangling metal representations of people and abstract shapes on top.

Washington, D.C.-based sculptor and performance artist Eric Reese and 20 sixth-graders made it during Reese's weeklong residency last week, sponsored by the Arts and Education Program of the Fine Arts Center.

The program offers residencies and workshops to area schools, as its budget permits.

"This is one of the most obviously in-depth and long-term residencies we've done," said Halina Kusleika, assistant director of programming for the Fine Arts Center.

The project began with children submitting drawings in September of their vision for a sculpture. They felt it should capture a place where different people might find themselves as they walk to and from the school, the library and community center.

Reese, using their drawings as inspiration, designed the structure and brought a mini-model of it to the school this week, where he and the students constructed the full-scale sculpture.

It's one of 17 projects Reese will do this year. He has done two this year in Florida, so far, one in Kentucky and seven in the Washington, D.C., area.

"It's just a great feel-good thing," he said. "It leaves a permanent mark and these kids are changed forever. They have a real ownership of this piece of work."

Before unveiling the sculpture Oct. 26 at 2:30 p.m. at the school, Reese starred in a one-man performance piece called "A Perfect Balance" at the Bowker Auditorium at UMass.

Hands-on fun

On Oct. 24, Pelham elementary parent Andrea Kandel stood in the drizzling rain, watching the sixth-graders and Reese dig holes in the grass and pour cement into them. The sculpture was later installed in the holes.

"This is the coolest project ever," Kandel said. "They're learning about physics, about art. They visited the Norman Rockwell Museum; they read about artists and their lives. They're learning how to make decisions as a group."

Sixth-grader Maia Callahan explained how the students' visions found their way into Reese's design. Callahan had drawn several ladders with all kinds of people on them, including young and old, people of all different colors and shapes and a person in a wheelchair. "Upside down, it looks like a hand," she said of the drawing.

Reese took the hand, made it even more abstract and cut it out of metal. He attached it to the top of the structure.

Sixth-grader Annie Kandel described her drawing as "a bunch of people that were holding up other people, like stick people, but they didn't really have legs."

Sure enough, there is a bar on top of the sculpture with people on it resembling Kandel's. "Everyone liked it," she said of Reese's interpretation of their drawings.

Kandel's favorite moment came when students and Reese built something like a "human vise," as one of the adults put it, to manipulate pieces of wood. The students got to stand on it.

"I, personally, like this part," student Michael Rock said of the cement-pouring stage. "We were having such a fun time messing around with the cement and everything, and (Reese) wasn't like, You have to listen to exactly what I say.' It didn't feel like something you would do in school."

Rock had drawn an abstract, blossoming flower on a stalk. He saw references to it in Reese's design.

After a group of 10 sixth-graders worked on the project for about an hour, another 10 reported to the auditorium to paint the structure, which was lying in pieces on the stage.

Sixth-grader Bryar Loftfield said the best part of the experience was working with Reese and learning how to make the sculpture.

"You can help with so much of it," she said.

Reese praised the level of student involvement.

"The last outdoor installation I did, I completed two weeks ago with 200 second-graders. To go from 200 second-graders to 20 sixth-graders is an Oh joy, oh rapture' sort of thing," Reese said.

"To be able to work with such small, focused groups and the parental support I had - I know that these kids have had a chance to participate from beginning to end."

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.