CL ‘Community Art’ holds firm

Photo by Esther K. Smith
Ceramic Tiles designed by Cascade Locks’ Community Art students are installed above the door to Lance Masters’ room by Kyle Prowett. Art students designed the room-numbering tiles after consulting with their “clients,”
the teachers, for ideas and preferences.

By AMIRRA MALAK
For the Hood River News
February 22, 2006

Students who enrolled in “Community Art” as an elective class at Cascade Locks School signed on for a very different kind of art class.

In this class, every project is collaborative, and created for permanent public display. Each work of art is produced to serve the community rather than to keep. Students are challenged to collaborate with each other and with “clients” to design and create artwork to be of service to others.

The first project this year was created for the Warm Springs Tribe and the City of Cascade Locks. Students designed and created ceramic tile plaques and friendship bowls to give to the Tribe and the City to commemorate the potential cultural exchange that the casino may bring.

The “clients” the students collaborated with were the Lorangs, who spearheaded the art exchange. Brad Lorang designed the logo signifying the cultural exchange, and students incorporated the design and colors representing both communities into the plaques and bowls.

The finished pieces were then presented to representatives of both communities at the Festival of Nations event in Cascade Locks.

The next collaborative project was to design and carve ceramic tiles to be installed over the secondary classroom doors.

Students interviewed each teacher for image and color ideas relating to each teacher’s subject area. They then created three design sketches based on the interviews and had the “clients” choose their favorite design. The tiles are now installed, and each community art student can walk down the halls knowing they contributed to the beauty of their school environment. Future projects will include mosaic stepping stones and an outdoor wall mosaic (funded by a grant from the Hood River Education Association) to enhance a new garden being created by the Outdoor Science class taught by Debra Boquist, and a new greenhouse (funded by a grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust) being installed by the Service Learning class taught by Mark Reynolds.

Students will also create an indoor mosaic (funded by Providence Hospital) to beautify the new Yasui Dialysis Center at Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital.

Amirra Malak teaches art at Cascade Locks School

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