A cross-school collaboration brings imagination to life
This spring, art students from Oyster Bay Middle/High School and second graders from Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School joined forces on a project that was equal parts creative challenge and community building.
It started in the elementary school classrooms, where second graders sketched monsters born entirely from their imaginations. No two monsters were alike: each was distinct in color, features and the number of eyes, legs and arms it sprouted.
That's where the high school art students came in. Using the second graders' drawings, they set to work in the high school ceramics room, studying every detail and translating each flat, hand-drawn creature into a three-dimensional clay sculpture. Using techniques such as pinch-pot construction and wire supports, they worked to replicate each young artist's original vision as closely as possible.
But the collaboration didn't stop at the finished piece. As they worked, the high schoolers recorded video messages for the second graders, sharing their process and what they loved about each young student’s drawing.
When the clay monsters were complete and ready to leave the kiln, they were delivered to Theodore Roosevelt Elementary along with those video messages. The second graders saw their imagined creatures come to life and heard from the older students who had worked hard to make it happen.
View the video of “My Monster Masterpiece” below.