IUAM honors talented youth

More than 100 students from 11 elementary schools were honored at the Youth Art Month awards presentation Saturday.\nThere was standing room only as the students and their families packed the lecture hall in the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts to its maximum capacity of 300 people.\nThe IU Art Museum hosted the event with the Monroe County Community School Corporation to honor the students whose artwork their teachers selected to be displayed in the atrium of the IU Art Museum.\nEach teacher called his or her students to the stage to hand them certificates and take a class picture in front of a banner created by students from University Elementary School.\n“I was excited to walk up there,” said Jed Ison, a first-grade student from Marlin Elementary School whose depiction of “Toy Story’s” Buzz Lightyear was displayed on the first floor. “I wasn’t nervous at all.”\nAfter the ceremony, the museum hosted a reception in the atrium where students could show their artwork to friends and family.\n“I’m happy they picked mine,” said Sondra Valaie, a sixth-grader from Summit Elementary School, as she showed it to her mother and sister.\nHer picture of tropical birds colored with oil pastels and paints colorfully adorned the second-floor display.\nJoanna Cross and Ed Maxedon from the IU Art Museum education department organized the event with Cheryl Maxwell from Grandview Elementary School. 2007 is the seventh year the museum worked with Monroe County schools and the third year Cross has been in charge of the event, Maxedon said.\nYouth Art Month has been around for nearly 30 years, Maxwell said. \n“I’m not sure it would be as important in another town,” Maxwell said. “In Bloomington, we have the elementary schools and the big university. It shows the students the opportunities available to them here.”\nChristi Ison, Jed’s mother, agreed that Bloomington schools offer opportunities for students to cultivate their artistic muse, even before elementary school.\n“Jed got into art at St. Mark’s,” she said. “It’s a really groovy school where they had rooms with different kinds of paints and clay available for the students to experiment with.”\nThe wide rang of selected artwork, which encompasses everything from a idyllic landscape courtesy of Sabra Davis to a one-scene comic by Hannah Fidler, will be on display until March 30.\n“The kids are amazed that so many people are here from so many schools to look at their artwork,” said Dee Di Camilloan art teacher from Lakeview Elementary. “Joanna and Ed did a fantastic job.”