Students engaged and connected during Art-ature Blast class

Sangamon Elementary Art Teacher Jeramie Truax and Reading Specialist Angie Pagel are bridging the gap between art and literature in their BLAST course titled “Art-ature.”

During the third session of Art-ature in recent years, Truax and Pagel asked students to think about how art can become literature and how literature to become art.

At the begininng of each Art-ature class, Pagel shares a story. During the winter Blast session, students learned about love and kindness.

“I think they get inspired to see what you can go from a book,” Truax said. “And see how the artist in the book, their artwork is just as much based on what we are doing in class.”

After the snack and a story, the students moved into their work-time. Projects, like the tree and cup-of-quiet project Art-ature students did during this session had multiple layers taking three or four sessions to complete.

“So it’s not like read a book about dogs and draw a dog,” Truax said. “We’re trying to go bigger. And they really got it.”

During one of the first meetings of Blast this session, Truax and Pagel gave students a cup of hot tea to warm them up.

To begin, students were asked what a “cup-of-quiet” means.

“And that day they were having great conversations coming up with ideas like, ‘Go to work for the first time with my dad quiet,’ and ‘I’m late for school quiet,’ Truax said.

While sipping the tea, students created their art.

“You could hear a pin drop in here,” Truax said.

“Our intention always is that we want that big idea to really sink in,” she continued.”This time it really worked.”

Students became really excited when they learned that the group would take a field trip towards the end of the session to Kaffee where their work would be displayed.

On February 27, students talked about coffee shop etiquette before they entered the building.

“They were just over the moon excited,” Truax said. “They feel like real artists.”

“It’s different than a coffee shop where you’re just going for coffee,” she said. “These guys go to IGA all the time. They can pop in and do what they were going to do, and stop and see their work.”

After returning from their field trip, students returned to a cup of hot chocolate provided by Kaffee. They used their few minutes left to doodle.

Two students drew a picture of a person to display how no two artists draw alike, but everyone’s art is worthwhile.

“Our art is unique,” Lilly Luksander said.

“Doing art makes me feel proud of myself and it makes me feel like I can do anything I put my mind to,” Claire Cummings said.