Show features student artwork

Published 7:48 pm Thursday, June 7, 2012

Students in Nancy Scoble’s art class know that “art takes time.”

They have spent the past year taking their time creating art in a wide range of styles and elements and chosen their favorites for a special Black & White Night exhibit being held in the Union Alley Coffeehouse at the Inner Banks Artisan Center tonight and Saturday.

Hundreds of pieces of art — a collection of work produced by the pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade children at the Washington Montessori Public Charter School of Washington — will be displayed from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. tonight and 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Saturday.

This year, folks may make donations to the school by dining today at anytime, day or night, at Backwater Jack’s Tiki Bar & Grill. The eatery has offered to donate back to the school 10 percent of the cost of every meal ticket purchased by anyone stating they are attending the exhibit, Scoble said.

Scoble and the artists are excited about the exhibit.

“We did (an art exhibit) two years ago, and we felt it was a great success so we wanted to do it again. The students search out their work (on the walls). They run across the room and say, ‘There it is.’ It’s so exciting,” Scoble said.

“I feel happy that people will be able to see my artwork and my classmates’ artwork,” said fifth-grader Sarah Parker, who chose to display a mixed-media leaf drawing with tissue paper and sparkles.

“I chose my work with the vanishing point because I like the realistic feel of it,” said sixth-grader Noah Ausherman.

“I chose my sunflower. I used pastel. I feel proud that all my friends and family are going to see it,” said fifth-grader Yesenia Gachuz.

Some of the styles and elements the students have worked on and will be showing include pointillism, vanishing point, the fruit-head art style of Giuseppi Arcimboldo, line, texture, color, shape, space, form and value.

Hanging alongside the students’ artwork will be 30 pieces of art produced by children from an English-language school in Russia and brought to Washington earlier this year as part of an art exchange between two area schools and the Russian school.

This shared exhibit ties in with Montessori’s Kids Fest, an end-of-year global festival in which each class hosts a celebration of art, culture and food from a different area of the world, Scoble said.

As in the past, the black-and-white theme is designed to lend an air of formality and respect to the evening, Scoble said.

“It implies a more elegant, slowed-down pace where the children can walk through the galleries and meet the other artists working there in the gallery,” she said.

The Inner Banks Artisan Center is located at 158 W. Main St. Backwater Jack’s is located at 1052 E. Main St. near Havens Gardens.