Artist~Teacher... tishalou

I have been so far behind on posting and not sure where to start! So thanks to Phyl at There's a Dragon in My Artroom for starting the topic of District-wide art shows.

Here are posts about last year's Art Festival in my county.

Each year in Fauquier County we have a county wide show where art teachers from our 11 Elementary Schools, 5 Middle Schools and 3 High Schools display work they have chosen. It is billed as an Arts Festival so it also includes music and choral performances. I think these are on a volunteer basis of the music teachers. Each art teacher is tasked at bringing cookies, crackers and Ginger Ale for punch.

For the past three years that I have been in the county the show has been at Kettle Run HS because it was just built and the county wanted to show it off. It is also where our 'lead art teacher' works. We also have a traveling art show where each teacher brings 6 pieces of artwork and it gets divided into 3 different shows. These shows travel to different schools throughout the year to showcase work from around the county. All 3 shows come back and are displayed at the Art Festival as well.

Since I started I have been of the opinion that each school should showcase their program and keep their school's work all together in one place. Currently each teacher mounts their work and then it gets hung anywhere within the main hall or gym of the HS. The HS Art students help hang the work - so a lot of times even the art teacher that brought the work does not know where the work is hung. This causes problems when the student and their whole family come to see the work and it cannot be found. In the past it was done this way so that parents would look at all the work and not just their child's. I don't think you can force people to look - and they are there to see and support their child's work and school.

Here are pictures of my display all in one place on 1/2 inch foam core boards.

One of our veteran HS teachers posed some tough questions after our show this year. Should we still do it? Has it gotten too big? Where should it be held? things like that...
I will be interested in the discussion it leads to at our final meeting of the year.