PROVINCETOWN — Seven third-graders from the Provincetown Schools took the stage at the Fine Arts Work Center on April 11 to thank artist Vicky Tomayko for showing them how to make prints.
The students had taken a class in the center’s printmaking studio with Tomayko, etching their images on plates and running them through the press. The class was part of a program called “Directions: Collaborations in Art Making and Word Play,” part of a series of activities with artists from FAWC in March.
Eager to present their showcases, the students and about 30 audience members, mostly their peers, then followed Tomayko into the print shop, where the exbibit “Monoprints: Signs of Spring” was on display.
It was, says Tomayko, “One of my favorite days at the work center.” Tomayko is a longtime teacher at FAWC.
Ever Schneider was the first to show her work, a print featuring polka dots she made with a finger dipped in paint. Then Trent Burritt showed his print: “I went for a sunset and robins and blue jays — how they nest and stuff,” he said, “and some flowers sprouting.”
Julian Lima was next. “That’s a piece of pizza,” he said. “It’s cheese, because I’m a vegetarian.” His is a minimalist print of solid shapes in deep colors.
Lyla Keyes’s print shows birds coming out in spring and a heart-shaped figure. “Because sometimes, more in spring than summer and winter, I feel like I love the animals more and flowers and all the nature,” she said.
The students had previously created prints in their classroom illustrating events in the Revolutionary War, but at FAWC their works focused on color and shape. “How many of you want to continue making art for the rest of your lives?” asked painter and FAWC facilities director Jerome Greene. All of the students jumped up and raised their hands.
FAWC visual arts fellow Agnes Walden showed the students prints she made on heavy limestone. “The bigger the stone, the more prints you can make over time,” said Walden, explaining that the stone gets smaller and smaller as works are produced — “kind of what happens to limestone in a river.”
As part of the same collaborative artmaking series, sixth-grade students worked with visual arts fellow Rehab El Sadek and their teachers David McGlothlin and Michael Gillane on a mapmaking and city drawing project. The resulting mural was hung behind the stage by Greene, who said he rarely displays art in the work center’s Stanley Kunitz Common Room, but for the students he had made an exception.
During their workshop sessions, the students split into two groups. One group painted portraits while the other worked in the abstract. Jon Gunn, one of the sixth-graders, stepped up to the podium and described the left side of the imagined cityscape. “We did futuristic work,” he said. “Nike does flying shoes now — so I made shoes. I also made a robot chef that prepares all the food in the city.”
While sixth-graders made prints and drew maps, a group of middle-years students (grades six through eight) wrote poetry during their time at FAWC. “Today, we celebrate a roomful of talented and emerging writers,” said FAWC Director Sharon Polli, thanking poets Tyler Raso and David Hutcheson, who led a series of workshops with the students.
After each reading, middle-years language and literature teacher Amy Rokicki encouraged audience members to “snap, clap, and shower with praise” those who were reading.
Shakira Brooker’s “Nothing Good Lasts Too Long” addresses the death of her aunt. “Tears are words only God understands,” she read.
“I am peace when there is no war,” read Silas Hamilton, who had worked on his poem with Hutcheson.
“No disruptions, no pressure, just peace,” read DeAndre Luster.
“Keeping people’s hearts from breaking in the first place,” read Andrew Prada from “Happy,” his poem that tries to shift the listener’s mood.
Nath’allia Steele read a rhyming poem she titled “A Poem of Healing.” She wrote: “Forgiveness lingers in the shadows,” and “In the dance of heartbreak and forgiveness/ We find the strength to rise above the mess.”
Trinity Thibeau read, “I shine like the sun and smile at who I have become.”
After the reading, Rokicki chatted with seventh-grader Matthew Peres. “Last year, Matthew was locked in the bathroom for the readings and a teacher kept going in to try to get him out,” she said. “This year, after writing a beautiful poem with Tyler Raso, Matthew asked Tyler to read his poem for him. Then, on the bus here, he finally decided to read the poem.”
“I grew up,” said Peres.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on April 18, incorrectly identified student Jon Gunn as “Joe” and teachers David McGlothlin and Michael Gillane as “Mr. Mac” and “Mr. Villains.”
