Studer Community Institute

Arts Festival opens 'Inquirers' minds

November 11, 2014
/ Staff Reports
/ early-learning

Pensacola artist David Vigo loves talking about his art as much as he enjoys making it. He spent a lot of time last week explaining his work to a group of Bellview Middle School students on a field trip to the Gulfcoast Arts Festival. The school’s Inquirers multi-grade team spent the day talking to artists and learning about their artwork as part of a class assignment. “I worked with mild-steel, and for this piece, I cut sections from a steel pipe and then welded them together to change the form of he pipe,” said Vigo. “It took eight hours to make this.” The students from Bellview Middle were among throngs of people who visited the Gulfcoast Arts Festival downtown in Seville Square to see a variety of artists and their crafts from around the country. Teams of students armed with clipboards and assignments walked around the festival inquiring about the various kinds of art and learning how and why artists create artistry. Not only did they ask artists about their artwork, they inquired about what artists used to create it. “We also asked them, ‘What does art mean to you, and what do they think the world would be like without art?’” eighth-grader Brendan Barge said. A different world, for sure, many of the artists answered. One artist said a car would be nothing but a blob without art. Another said society would be less colorful, and the world would be boring and lonely minus art. “One even said we wouldn’t have a society,” added Katie Spiewark-Flowers, a Belleview eighth-grader. Another part of their assignment involved math. “We set a target dollar amount and then found art we liked and kept track of a running total to see what we could buy for that amount,” Brendan said. The field trip to the art festival had many goals, but one of them was to expose children who don’t have art classes at their school to the creativity and education value of art. The visit opened their eyes to the world of art. And the questions gave them a starting point for conversations with creative artists, said Barbara Jacobs, Inquirers’ Language Arts teacher. Jacobs said the Inquirers have been going the festival for more than 20 years. They get to see a variety of artistic styles, apply language skills, ask questions and practice respectful behaviors that can broaden their horizons, inspire creativity and add to their appreciation of the work of others. Ashton Lizotte, a Bellview Middle eighth-grader, said a key thing he took away from the field trip was the vast amount of time and patience that is required to create art. “Even if you have creativity, if you don’t have patience, you can’t do anything,” Ashton said. Tina Witbracht, teaches Social Studies on the Inquirer’s team and enjoys the annual field trip. “The best part is watching the kid’s eyes light up when they have found art that they really like, Witbracht said. Tammy Pope, whose son Rayshaun is a seventh-grader at Bellview, met the class downtown. She said the trip to the festival is one of the many things she likes about her son’s participation on the Inquirers’ team. “This field trip exposed them to creative aspects of they might not be subjected to on a daily basis,” Tammy Pope said.

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Arts Festival opens 'Inquirers' minds

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