LCE’s art museum presents stripes

Last week La Cañada Elementary School’s cafeteria was transformed into La Cañada’s museum of modern art, with a treatment of stripes as the theme. The first through sixth grader students learned there is more to stripes than those on a zebra, a candy cane, a rainbow, a barcode and the American flag.

After studying the work of artists Sean Scully, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt, Jim Lambie and Daniel Buren each grade completed a contemporary art project inspired by the techniques of an artist.

All the classes, as well as parents and community members toured the museum.

“The exhibit is great. Stripes are so simple. They are in everyday things and look what the students did with them,” said Nancy Antonoplis, a parent of a sixth grader.

The exterior of the cafeteria was transformed into a facade of red and white striped canvas panels. The sixth grade classes made 60, three by five feet panels, putting them together to design a facade.

Inside the museum the first graders had an exhibit of digital photography, each student having taken photos of stripes found in La Cañada.

Color stained paintings on raw cotton canvas were the creations of half of the second graders, while the other half designed their own mini-color fields, painting stripes on cardboard canvasses. Both mediums were put together to create a larger color field.

The third graders produced a collaborative design effort by each painting small brushstroke stripes of pastel colors on four foot canvasses.

Adding the element of three-dimension, the fourth graders created a structure out of white boxes, which they drew stripes on.

Using different colored tape and going in different directions, the fifth graders created a rug, by putting stripes on the cafeteria floor.

“Putting the stripes on the floor was so much fun,” said Michael Singelyn, a fifth grader.