Art program pays dividends
Rich pastels, charcoal drawings and paper-mache bowls decorated the walls and bookshelves at Russellville Public Library Monday night where students in Melissa Grissom’s Art I, Art II and Art III classes held their annual art show.
The pieces displayed at the show represented a year’s worth of work by Russellville High School students who were able to study a wide range of artistic styles and principles throughout this past school year.
“We have worked on several different projects this year inside the classroom and we have also worked on some other community projects and contests as well,” Grissom said.
“In addition to the artwork displayed here, we also made over 800 ornaments before Christmas for a tree displayed at the Tennessee Valley Arts’ ‘Trees of Christmas: Victorian Visions’ exhibit.
“All the ornaments had to have a Victorian theme, which was good for the students to work on because they might not normally focus on artwork from that genre so it allowed them to work on something a little outside the box.”
Ninth grade Art I student Daisy Fuentes has taken art classes for several years because she said art is something she just loves to do.
“I took art classes in middle school and I plan on taking art classes all through high school,” Fuentes said. “I love learning new things about art and I really feel like I learn something new each year.
“I’m so glad there is an art program here for me and the other students to be part of because art is just my favorite thing to do and I don’t know what I would do without it.”
Grissom said that sentiment is something many of her students feel.
“Artwork can really become a major part of someone’s life,” she said. “It’s a way to express yourself, to relieve stress and to even make a living. I want all my students to experience that and to understand the many different ways art can be used in their lives.”
As part of that goal, Grissom said her advanced artwork classes participated in a shoe design contest sponsored by the popular shoe company Vans.
“This contest was an important experience for my advanced art students for a few different reasons,” she said. “They had to work in groups for this contest, so they had to learn how to work well with other people because that’s what it will be like when they get out in the real world and they’re working on a project with co-workers. There’s a lot of give and take involved in teamwork and it’s good that they learn that now.
“Also, this contest showed them what they can do with their artwork. Their artistic abilities can have real value in the business world and this contest helped them learn a little bit about the process for submitting designs for products and getting your ideas out there for others to see.”
Grissom said her students entered artwork in the “Artistic Renderings of Youth” exhibit at the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, and several of her students also participated in an ad design competition sponsored by the TimesDaily that helped one student, Autumn Harris, win a $500 scholarship for her first-place submission in the high school category – a category RHS swept with the second and third-place winners coming from Russellville as well.
“I am very proud of the students this year for all their hard work and for how well they have represented RHS out in the community,” Grissom said. “This is a very talented group of students that I’ve been privileged to teach. They came to school to learn from me, but in the process, I feel like I’ve learned a lot from them as well.”
