Staff Writer

More than 200 fifth-grade students from Consolidated, Sea Road and Mildred L. Day Elementary schools in RSU 21 are getting the chance to learn a new craft.

The students were invited to Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk over the course of a few weeks to take part in hands-on studio classes taught by some of the college’s professors.

“Everybody has to do something with their hands,” said Berri Kramer, president of Heartwood College of Art.

It is an ethos that resonates with the students’ teachers.

“Really, to create that whole child they need all disciplines, not just math and science,” said Darlene Nein, art teacher at the Middle School of the Kennebunks and Sea Road School.

Nein said all the disciplines can work together, such as using math while teaching photography. “We’re really all one.”

The halls of Heartwood were extremely quiet as students craned their necks to watch their new teachers show them how to draw a cartoon lion or the proper Chinese calligraphy pen stroke.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Kramer asked. “You can hear a pin drop.”

On Monday, students were in their last day of hands-on activity. The program has a three-day cycle – the first day is used for two blocks of demonstration, which Kramer and Nein pick randomly for students. On the second and third day students choose two hands-on workshops that each last an hour and 40 minutes.

On Monday, students picked from clay, pastel, papermaking and printmaking, jewelry, Chinese calligraphy, cartooning, acrylic painting and two watercolor classes.

Kramer said each class has 10 or fewer students so children have time to focus on what they are doing.

“They’re are moving so fast. They don’t stop to really feel that line they just drew,” Kramer said.

Their teacher said the creative process is a good alternative to the structure that generally fills their days.

“They need to be busy – if not one thing it’s another. I just thought they needed to unplug from all that stuff. To come up with their own thoughts is really a novelty,” Nein said.

This is only the third year of the program, which Kramer and Nein said began as a way to give students more time and a higher level of art education.

“A goal of ours is to evoke a passion for the visual arts,” Kramer said.

With the help of an $11,000 donation from Education Foundation of the Kennebunks and Arundel, students can come to the college for three days and make two different projects they take home at the end of the visit.

“The foundation was really trusting with us. We came to them with a pretty abstract idea,” Kramer said.

The program also gives students a chance to meet children from other schools.

Kramer said students likely will go to school together when they’re older and this may be the first time some have met. As an added benefit, students sometimes behave better when they’re around students they don’t know, she said.

“It flips us out every year. There’s zero bad behavior,” Kramer said.

The students are so focused on their paintings, drawings or clay design it’s hard to distract them to comment on their work.

“It’s a tank,” said Ethan King, 10, from Sea Road School as he pointed to a mound of clay. “I’m drawing it in clay first.”

Intent on his project, he shaved a little more from the side of the slowly forming rectangle in his hand.

Sabrina Cabral, 11, also from Sea Road School, was busy painting a long red sliver in the middle of a piece of glass for her printmaking class.

“It’s a snake,” she said as she concentrated on a tiny line that would eventually be the snake’s tongue. “I drew it on a piece of paper, then we chose the colors and now I’m painting on the glass.”

Nein said many middle school students, even those who haven’t been back to the college in three years, still talk about their good experience at the college.

“You can learn a lot from having fun,” Kramer said.  

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.