Tag: art

Young artists rock — especially my nephew

I visited the South Brunswick school district’s K-12 art exhibition last night and was amazed and pleased to see the kind of work being done.

At one table, featuring work from Greenbrook School (I believe), there were imitations of Kandinsky’s abstractions, essentially explorations of line and color. Other major artistic styles and genres were represented.

I ran into Joanne Kerekes, assistant superintendent for curriculum, who seemed to be enjoying the work and the responses of the parents. She reminded me that the art programs were not required by the state and that they too often are the kind of programs that get cut when budgets fail.

It would be a shame if that were to happen this year. The Township Council is reviewing the $135.9 budget defeated two weeks ago, hoping to cut enough from the tax levy to reduce the tax rate. That will require an $800,000 cut. Good luck.

I know the voters spoke and they have to be listened to, but the council must be careful. The district’s arts programs are too important, both to the educational process — students benefit in other curriculum areas when they take art and music — and to society as a whole.

The best example I can offer of what the arts program means is the picture above — done by my 7-year-old nephew Joey Kalet, a first-grader at Cosntable School.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Very cool news for the SB library

The George and Helen Segal Foundation has agreed to permanently place a piece of George Segal’s artwork in the South Brunswick Library. The piece (pictured from the foundation’s Web site), “Couple Against a Grey Brick Wall,” was completed in 1986 and used two local residents as models.
Segal, who died in 2000, was an influential and important artist — and a longtime South Brunswick resident — whose work includes “Depression Bread Line,” a sculpture for the Franklin D. Roosevelt memorial; “Kent State — Abraham and Isaac,” a sculpture on the campus of Princeton University in memory of the 1970 Kent State shootings; and “The Commuters, Next Departure” at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City.

Bravo.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

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Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.