Nursery school art exhibit teaches recycling

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Collages made with flowers and tree bark. Mobiles made out of paper towel rolls. Artwork painted on brown paper.

The Riverdale Presbyterian Church Nursery School held an art show Friday evening, featuring the work of all of its students. The exhibition at the Riverdale Country School, which donated its space for the show, ran for only a single night, but the ideas the project inspired are certain to last much longer.

The show was part of the nursery school’s pilot art program, “Studio Program,” which emphasizes the creative process and uses recyclable, household and natural materials as sources for the students’ creative artworks. The show received rave reviews from parents.

“This is so awesome. I love it,” said Rachel Rubinow, as she viewed the exhibit. Her 3-year-old son Jack is a student at the nursery school.

“I loved that it was interactive, that you could actually create something and get to interact and play… I just thought it was going to be displayed art,” said Bernadette Farrelly. Her 3-year-old son Kiran painted some of the interactive boxes, which students took home after the exhibit.

“I painted blue,” Kiran said happily, describing his work.

“I have flowers and those sparkle things and sand,” said 3-year-old Josina, describing her collage. She was all smiles.

Josina’s mother, Lea Torres, said the collage was “absolutely beautiful.”

“I’m super proud of her. It really shows her creativity,” Ms. Torres said.

Parents said the project also made their children more independent and interested in drawing at home.

“He does like drawing scenes and showing them to us and kind of explaining what he drew: It’s a ship, it’s a car or some specific person is in it,” said Ken Rubinow, Jack’s father and Ms. Rubinow’s husband.

The project also introduced students to recycling.

Bernie McLaren said her 2-year-old daughter Evie became involved in recycling, as the family collected paper towel rolls, tops of yogurt cartons for the artwork.

“If we do arts and crafts at home, normally I would have to help. Now, she says, ‘Mommy, I got this. I am doing it myself,’” Ms. McLaren said. “With the recycling, we all participate[d]. Every day, stuff we don’t recycle and give to the school, we take down and do it in the bins ourselves. So, she’s aware at such a young age, which is very good and important.”

Jenae Schwartz, a teacher who headed the program, said the school wanted to introduce students to recycling, to respecting and observing nature and wanted to show families that art can come from inexpensive, everyday items.

“Each classroom is featured with their own specific project using recycled, repurposed materials and then we have one large project [involving painted boxes],” she said. “They can rebuild. Interchange it. And, at the end of it, they can take them home and use them as treasure boxes.”

The students worked in art groups: The youngest three groups – the “Owls,” the “Robins” and the “Chickadees,” all comprising ages 2 to about 3.5 – finger-painted on recycled brown paper as their canvases, made mixed-media collages with grass, acorns and flowers on recycled cardboard, and built mobiles with paper-towel and toilet-paper rolls of different shapes and sizes.

The 4-year-old “Hummingbirds” explored printmaking and stamp making using items such as potato mashers, toy cars and sponge curlers.

The Riverdale Presbyterian Church Nursery School began its “Studio Program” this fall, said Lauren Mactas Bowles, the school’s executive director.

“In art, the process of being imaginative, the process of making of personal decisions, the process of expressing yourself, that’s what help children feel self-assured… Those are the tools that they are going to take with them as they leave the nursery school,” she said.

“I am proud that parents can see how hard their children are working, how creative they are, how empowered they are to make decisions to be curious and explore materials,” Ms. Bowles said.

Riverdale Presbyterian Church Nursery School, RPCNS, Lauren Mactas Bowles, Jenae Schwartz, Lea Torres, Rachel Rubinow, Bernadette Farrelly, Ken Rubinow, Bernie McLaren

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