As part of their studies, 8th grade art students studied work by installation artist Sandy Skoglund. Sandy's art goes beyond the picture's frame and the sculpture's pedestal. In her art, she utilizes the walls, the ceiling and floors of galleries to create her different, sometimes bizarre environments of hand sculpted multiples of babies, foxes and squirrels.

Weaver Middle School 's courtyard seemed like a perfect space to experiment with an installation art piece. Under the direction of art teacher Lynn Dorr, each 8th grade art student created a 12" ceramic maple, oak, chestnut or bed bud leaf. The leaves were slip painted, fired and hung on the courtyard walls and used as fallen leaves amid the landscaping. Students understand that they leave an artistic legacy as part of this group installation piece. Each leaf has it's own creative twist, so we can see this work as one of celebrating diversity, as well as celebrating creativity.
We hope that you enjoy the installation!

2001 Student Art Induction

Eight current and former Weaver art students were honored on October 26th as their artwork was inducted into the Weaver Middle School's Media Center Art Gallery. Students honored at the ceremony were: Davidson High School freshman: Megan Albee, Ryan Beatty, Matt Flamm and Matt Swecker. Current Weaver students honored were Will Handford and Missy Dvorsky. Memorial Middle School student artists included Amy Lee and Katie Shoup.

Principal Ed O'Reilly spoke of the importance that the visual art plays in a student's education. He reminded us that school is not just about academics and athletics. Art teacher Lynn Dorr told parents that these students approach their work with sincerity and possess a developed sense of self discipline that enables them to focus on their work and give it a great deal of effort. They work very hard to achieve these outstanding results. Their assignments require that they are creative as well as proficient in the painting, drawing and sculpting skills that are needed to create such a high quality work of art.

The art work was selected from the 2001 Weaver Arts Show in May. Mixed media compositions of bugs were created by the eighth graders, Dvorsky, Handford, Shoup & Lee. These compositions required that students create compositions that had the essential compositional elements such as balance, depth, movement and a focal point. Students worked from various bug models and rendered them in graphite, then used watercolor techniques to create a sense of 3 dimensions.

The works of freshmen Beatty, Flamm and Swecker were mixed media self portraits. Students studied the portrait as traditional and non traditional throughout history. These graphite and watercolor pieces were created from photos that were taken in class. The students improved their skills of rendering as well as their skills in creating depth through accurately portraying lighting effects in order to create a dimensional image. Mrs. Dorr gave a special thanks to Matt Swecker who is the only student to date that has had two pieces selected for this honor. His mixed media composition from last year had been inducted last October.

Megan Albee worked to create a Surrealist style composition of an owl in acrylic paint on canvas. Her ability to achieve a sense of 3 dimensions from her subject matter is incredible.

Art teacher Matt Sparks thanked the students for leaving their artwork, knowing that they will miss their work, but stated that it is an honor to leave their work for all to enjoy for many years to come.