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Young artists display talents at Mt. Lebanon Montessori School

By Harry Funk 3 min read
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Gemma Prion made a piñata called “Enchanted Meadow,” constructed as an Alicorn, a unicorn with wings inspired by Sibley Miller’s book “If Wishes Were Horses.”

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Harry Gibson’s architectural project is called “The Great Doughnut,” representing an apartment building.

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Arianna Kumpf’s “Unity” is based on the work of Bob Ross.

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Avalon Armfield drew inspiration from Pittsburgh-born artist Andy Warhol for “Soup Can Pop Art.”

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Lilah Turnbull shows “The Vessel,” a ceramic piece made of clay.

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Lourdes Armfield with her Vincent Van Gogh-inspired “Lola’s Version of Starry Night”

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Students made lamps from recycled materials, which were auctioned off to benefit the Mattress Factory’s outreach programs.

Visitors to the “Art As Expression” exposition at Mt. Lebanon Montessori School generally got the same impression as the school’s director.

“It doesn’t look like it’s first- and second-grade artwork,” Megan Steen said. “Our students really have amazing talents that they’re able to showcase.”

The main room of the school, Benedict Hall, was transformed into an art gallery for the Feb. 15 event, during which pieces were sold to benefit outreach programs of the Mattress Factory museum of contemporary art.

“Our kids researched a type of artist or style of art,” Steen said about students in first through sixth grades. “Then they did a report on that and created art in that same style, everything from photography and cartooning to architecture and different types of painting.”

Among the students who chose to paint was second-grader Arianna Kumpf. She enjoys watching episodes of “The Joy of Painting,” featuring the late Bob Ross, and based her “Unity” on one his favorite scenes, depicting a lake, trees and mountain in the background.

“I like how he uses different kinds of paints, and his textures,” Arianna said about Ross.

An influential ceramic artist, Toshiko Takaezu, inspired fourth-grader Lilah Turnbull to create a clay vessel decorated with Japanese letters in honor of Takaezu’s heritage.

“I like her closed form that she did for her pots,” Lilah said about her groundbreaking style. “She also wrapped a bead inside of paper and dropped it in her pots, so then when they were moved, they would rattle.”

Younger students at the school, which is for children ages 2 to 12, worked on assigned projects. For example, kindergartners created images of their hands using the Zentangle Method, a form of repetitive patterns developed by artists Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.

Another project involved constructing lamps from recycled materials such as old Christmas lights, newspapers and two-liter bottles. Those proved to be popular among the students, according to Claire Hulefeld, the event’s coordinator head teacher of the school’s Upper Academy for fourth- through sixth-graders.

“We were going to just sell them, but there were so many kids who said, ‘I want it. I want it.’ We only had 10, and it took us six weeks to make them, on Friday afternoons,” Hulefeld explained.

As a result, the lamps were put up for silent auction.

“We thought, that might benefit a little bit more for the Mattress Factory,” Hulefeld said. “Plus if we didn’t do that, we were going to have a race to the table to be the first ones to buy them.”

Fundraising from the silent auction and assorted art sales added up to more than $1,000 by the end of the evening.

Mt. Lebanon Montessori School hosts an exposition each year with varying themes – last year’s was books – to help display the full spectrum of what students are learning.

“We’re not just sticking to math and science and language,” Steen said. “We’re going way beyond that, and letting the children experiment and explore what their talents are.”

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