JACKSON – Jackson Liberty High School students and staff recently revealed a new sculpture that they created at the grounds of the school.
The new sculpture is located in the courtyard outside of the main hallway at Liberty. The art installation is the result of a year-long Artists in Education Residency grant program that was provided to the school.
Art teacher Megan Bender oversaw the implementation of the project. She was excited when the school won the grant, but concerned that it started during the pandemic. The grant fund was for $11,000 and designed to expand the experience of students and teachers.
“Last year we got notice about the grant that would bring a teaching artist to the school to work with students for 20 days. We knew we wanted to make a permanent installation of a sculpture for this courtyard with the hopes of transforming this into a sculpture garden in the future,” Bender said.
Ceramic and glass mosaic artist Gail Scuderi came in to work with students in February every Friday.
“The kids really had so much ownership on this project,” Bender said. “They decided on what they wanted to make. They created all the individual pieces and things came together as a whole.”
She said approximately 100 students from grades 9-12 had some type of hands-on work on the sculpture. “It was really a wonderful experience. We had students working remotely from home. I had kids working with clay on their bedroom floor and then bring in their project to drop off. Someone here would then glaze their piece. They really got an idea of what it was like to work as part of a team because nobody could have done this alone.”
The art team also included art teachers Jessee Bassel and Ashley Forsyth. Special thanks went out to Joe Lux, Anthony Bruno, Andy Michaelides and JLHS Principal Geoff Brignola and Dave Bender for their help in base construction and installation.
The student artists, the resident artist, JLHS staff and Board of Education President Tara Rivera were among those present for the unveiling.
Students Faced Challenges
“I was terrified when I found out that we couldn’t just push the grant to next year when things got back to normal. We were told no, we had to do it this year. I was really nervous about how it would go but the kids really surprised me with their dedication, their ingenuity and creativity,” Megan Bender added.
Senior Kimi Adolffen said she found the experience of working on the sculpture interesting. “I was curious on how I was going to build the pieces from my bedroom. I had to use different objects to put texture on them to build it up. I actually used my perfume bottle.”
The student said that “we rolled coils and we built the pots by wrapping coils around it and smoothing it out. It was interesting to learn how to make it taller without it collapsing,” She said the final result “came out really good.”
Fellow senior Celoe Soeoss said, “at first I was kind of skeptical until I could see it all together and when we finally did, it looked much better. It turned out to be a lot fun.
Another Grant
Bender announced during the close of the unveiling ceremony held outside in the courtyard that the sculpture garden saga was not quite over. While this piece of artwork had been concluded and will shine in its splendor for the world to see, that more was to come.
She told The Jackson Times prior to the ceremony that, “I just found out today that we got the grant again for next year. We are hoping to incorporate some kind of water feature so can start to get some plants out there so it won’t be so barren.”
“That is one hope for next year. We learned from Gail this year so much about materials and what we can use outside. Materials that can withhold changes in extreme temperature. I think that will influence all of our teaching,” Bender said.
Artist Enjoyed JLHS
Scuderi could even be the artist in residency assigned to the school next year. She said she enjoyed her time with JLHS students and staff. “This was my first time at a school in Jackson and working with high school students. The biggest challenge was not having all the students in the classroom with me when we started. Half of them were on Zoom and things were changing by the week even with the kids that were in front of me.”
“It took me a long time to realize who exactly I was working with. It was kind of like reaching in the dark, but in the end all the students were able to come back so I finally got to see all of the group and that was a wonderful day,” Scuderi added.
“We were able to move forward at that point and really make it come together. I’ve worked around the state at a lot of different schools. It was nice working with high school students. They have more ability than elementary school students. I gave them a challenge and they rose to the challenge even moreso because of the difficulties we had,” the artist said.
