PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — A small group of students from Wintergreen Arts Center got an opportunity to connect with older community members when they created a piece of artwork for the Sargent Family Community Center’s senior room.
The project began last spring when Chris Beaulieu, director of recreation and parks in Presque Isle, and Renee Fournier, pediatrician at Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital, approached Kara Addington with the idea of having students in Wintergreen’s spring session of their after-school art program create a painting to hang permanently in the senior room.
Addington is the center manager for Wintergreen, but at the time was teaching the after-school program and thought that the project tied in perfectly with the theme of the six-week class.
“We were working on community art, mostly with the community garden, but I thought this would be a fun project,” Addington said.
She recruited three students — Lariah Langley, 11, Ada Cote, 8, and Kaleigh Phillips, 12 — to paint a tree, on four separate canvases hung together, that showcased all four seasons of Aroostook County. They revealed their finished art in August to senior citizens at the community center where it still hangs.
Langley said the project showed her how much work goes into creating artwork with other artists and gave everyone a chance to share their own ideas.
“We all came up with the idea of putting a different animal in each of the seasons,” Langley said.
The spring portion of the painting shows a squirrel sitting on one of the tree branches while a bird appears in summer, a fox in the fall and a wolf howling to the sky in the winter. The students also decided to paint all four skies a different color — bright blue for spring, a darker blue for summer, yellow for fall and gray for winter — that reflect the moods and landscapes of each season.
Although community art is not the focus of every after-school session, Addington noted that this project in particular helped students learn the significance of sharing art in a public space with community members.
“It was fun to see the seniors react to the painting and interact with the kids. I think they were pleased with the art that the students were presenting,” Addington said. “The students themselves got to take pride in their work and share their talents with others.”
Langley stated that art is one of her favorite subjects to explore and was glad to see reactions from the seniors at the community center, especially one who is most special to her.
“My grandmother was there and she told us that she was proud of the work that we had done,” Langley said. “I think it was cool for us to show them the painting and for them to know that we were the artists.”
