She points to the plain garments the 

 artist has drawn. Kayla clearly loves 

 talking about the artwork and speculat- 

 ing on the conversations the people in 

 the pictures may be having. In a soft 

 voice that suggests she is sharing a 

 secret, Kayla reveals that the silk screens 

 have caused her to think about art "with 

 a little bit more intelligence." 



Art through the eyes of a child — 

 that is the focus of an innovative 

 educational venture developed and 

 sponsored by St. John's Museum of Art 

 in Wilmington. 



"Art in the Schools" takes original 

 art into the classroom with an interdisci- 

 plinary approach that inspires students 

 to investigate subjects from history to 

 color theory, literature and geometry, 

 says St. John's curator Anne Brennan, 

 who initiated the project. The point is to 

 make the study of art a "launching pad" 

 for the study of traditional academic 

 subjects, she says. 



For instance, Howell's serigraphs 

 of net-menders may prompt students to 

 talk about the socioeconomic condition 

 of the coast — both past and present. 

 They raise the question of whether 

 people still mend nets on the coast. 

 Classes discuss how the nets have 

 changed and how the fishing industry 

 has revolutionized since Howell 

 observed these scenes. He created the art 

 between 1972 and 1992. 



The exhibits also give students an 

 opportunity to see original art outside of 

 a museum setting. In the classroom, they 

 can write about their impressions of the 

 art and artist, or they can act out 

 movements they see in the serigraphs 

 with a dance. 



Brennan and outreach coordinator 

 Richard Sceiford, who prepared a 

 teacher's guide and implemented the 

 program, are elated with the positive 

 feedback. "Art in the Schools" is 

 scheduled for a tour of seven southeast- 

 ern North Carolina county schools over 

 the next several years. Brennan says 

 she'd like to follow the Howell exhibit, 

 compiled in December 1996, with one 



14 WINTER 1998 



"Waiting for the Shrimpboat" 



featuring "Jugtown" pottery from the 

 Seagrove area. 



"The key is the interdisciplinary 

 angle," Brennan says. "Thus far, the art 

 teachers are far exceeding our expecta- 

 tions in their creative use of the visual 

 elements with which Claude constructs 

 his images to relate concepts in math, 

 creative writing, science and economics. 

 We hope the classroom teachers will 

 begin to see the benefits of this program 

 and use it as well." 



Kathy Glielmi, an art teacher at 

 Berkeley Manor Elementary School on 

 the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, 

 tries the Howell exhibit with great 

 success. In the space of one 45-minute 

 class, she leads the children in a lively 

 discussion of the industries portrayed in 

 Howell's work, the colors and shapes 

 unique to these prints and the artist's 

 point of view. Then she encourages 

 student response in various forms of 

 creative writing inspired by the artwork. 



"We have talked about the fact that 

 many times artists are visual artists, 

 what they are producing is a painting or 



a sculpture, something that you can look 

 at," she tells the students. "But if you are 

 standing here viewing these pictures, 

 you are pretty passive. So if we think 

 about conceptual artists — and there's 

 that word 'concepts' again, which 

 means ideas — we are going to create 

 word pictures so that when someone 

 reads what you have written they will 

 start to form a picture in their mind." 



She offers them a choice of poetry 

 forms. The favorite is an acrostic using 

 the letters of the artist's name to begin 

 sentences that describe him and his art. 



"Or, you could write a story," she 

 continues. "You could become one of 

 the people in the pictures, or better still, 

 maybe you're the boat. You might even 

 be the net or a shrimp." This comment 

 elicits gales of laughter with a quick 

 exchange about the possibilities of 

 ending up in a shrimp salad. Using the 

 words of the artist himself, she helps the 

 children realize that history, knowledge 

 of the subject and sometimes even the 

 learning of a specific skill are all part of 

 the creative process. 



