From May 21 to May 23, the teacher’s cafeteria of Cardozo was transformed into a beautiful showcase of original student art. The art show, coordinated by the art department, has become an annual event, highlighting the talent of the Cardozo student body.
Throughout the three days, teachers were able to bring down their classes to view the original artwork, made from various art classes throughout the year. The student projects span from paper mâché to self-portraits.
Mr. Lavelle, mixed media art teacher, explained, “We have four art teachers. Each art teacher participates. They submit several artworks that they’ve created throughout the school year with their students.”
As each teacher is tasked with setting their classes’ respective artwork, Mr. Lavelle shared that the art show takes a lot of preparation. “Some after school, during the day…groups of students help me prepare and bring stuff down…so it takes several hours.”
Mr. Lavelle worked tirelessly to organize his students’ paper mâché artwork – ladybugs, butterflies, and more — into a mind-bending experience. The paper mâché insects are much larger than their real life counterparts, making the viewer feel much smaller by comparison.
As students and teachers alike walk by the artwork, they will notice several post-its. These small slips of paper are part of an activity for students, where they take note of a certain aspect they appreciate of the art and leave it behind. These notes litter every exhibition, a testament to the interest of others.
Each section of the art show is incredibly unique in its own way, coming from the creativity of the students and arranged together by their teachers.
The show also had several self-portraits composed by students, decorated with wild and diverse designs in the background. What can be shown is the many different faces of Cardozo students. Not only did these designs cover the backgrounds, students were creative enough to enforce these designs on their hair.
Also showcased were many different shapes that were composed of paper. This display of figures is categorized under the name of “Multiples with an emphasis.” This reflects the student’s creativity and what they’ve produced with their artwork. These clay figures were intended to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional figures, such as pyramids, cubes, and many more different figures.
The art show was not only decorated with students’ artwork, but through many decorative displays as well. Shown here is a tree decorated with fabric, lights, and butterfly figures. Many of these trees were shown as people walked through the art show, some of them being decorated with tissue paper instead of fabric. The trees can be shown being held by a pole being decorated with brown pieces of paper, depicting a tree.
Also shown is a portrait of geometric figures. These pieces of art showcase many different geometric patterns and are decorated with wild and creative designs and colors. These pictures were created through pieces of paper and cardboard.
For art students, this show is the culmination of their hard work over the course of a year. As each year brings new students to create artwork, it is exciting to see what awaits us at next year’s art show.
