LYNN — The district’s annual All-City Art Exhibit has gone virtual this year, but never fear — it will still feature outstanding creative work from students in kindergarten through high school.
In a year without COVID-19, this exhibit would be featured at LynnArts on Exchange Street, where hundreds of people could view it. However, since COVID-19 forced remote learning and limited the ability to host in-person events, the exhibit was transferred to a virtual format on YouTube.
For the All-City Art Exhibit, between five and 10 pieces of art were chosen from students at each school in the district.
The Lynn Public Schools (LPS) Visual Arts Department consists of 22 licensed visual arts teachers, one art therapist and one assistant director of curriculum and instruction of the arts.
Curriculum Director of the Arts Patty Klibansky organized professional learning opportunities in the school district and at the Addison Gallery of American Art to train all LPS art teachers to build their skills about professionally exhibiting student art.
“In planning this All-City Art Exhibit, students are taught to show their artwork and the processes involved from start to finish, in all classrooms by their art teacher,” Klibansky said.
The art teachers begin to plan this event in October during monthly meetings. It takes several months of planning and leads to the culmination — usually an in-person event — during the first week of May, which falls during the city’s ArtWeek.
Klibansky said the students exhibited a wide variety of their art-class creations, much of which was made in students’ homes during remote learning this school year.
“The art is very impressive and showcases the artistic growth of students from grade pre-K through grade 12,” Klibansky said.
During remote learning, the teachers taught and collected student art digitally, and every art teacher contributed, along with their LPS arts director, to the curation of this spring’s exhibit.
The art was then edited by each teacher for image quality and labeled.
Classical High School art teacher Leah Warren then devised a digital iMovie slideshow, which will showcase the students’ work along with music.
“The inspiration behind the art exhibit is the process of artmaking and exhibiting as a real artist,” Klibansky said. “This is so that students experience community connections as actual artists and can showcase their art alongside other students from all the Lynn public schools.”
The artworks include portraiture, landscape, abstraction and sculpture.
The lesson plans through which the students’ art was produced aligns with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Curriculum Frameworks, and made use of prepared visual art videos, lessons, slides and activities — all of which were personally customized by the art department’s teachers.
“Students are taught the elements of art and principles of design, art appreciation,” Klibansky said. “We are all so proud of how the exhibit came together, especially during a pandemic. Lynn has amazing talent. The hardworking students, dedicated teachers and supportive principals put a lot of effort in connecting with Lynn’s students all year. I hope everyone has a chance to check out our student All-City Art Exhibit.”
Klibansky said LPS plans to resume in-person art exhibits next year. To view the 2021 exhibit, visit the following link: https://youtu.be/jfEOwTpzdSk.
