ipei_mollyIthaca High School visual art students and Garden Club are collaborating on an Artful Garden, a community garden space to grow produce, display art and provide a natural refuge for students.

“Students are investigating issues around planning and gardening, creating an outdoor art space, planting seasonally and designing a pocket park within our school community,” explains Ithaca High Art Department Chair Carol Spence.  “With the Cooperative Extension’s Gardens for Humanity, as our community resource, the students are planning, building, planting and decorating the atrium garden space, adjacent to the school’s cafeteria.  The Drawing and Painting students were introduced to botanical illustration by illustrator, muralist and gardener Kellie Cox-Brady.”

Students painted botanical images in acrylic on the untraditional surfaces of cabinet doors and window frames and these art pieces will be mounted on the walls of the Artful Garden Space.

Funding for the visiting artist was provided by a Fine Arts Booster Group Mini-Grant.  Funding for the community connection to Cooperative Extension was funded by an Ithaca Public Education Initiative Teacher Grant and the project was led by Ithaca High art teacher Jackie Richardson, also advisor to the Ithaca High Garden Club.


Painting by Molly Westbrook

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