Jan Wiesner Makes Art Magic
These tiles simulate Aborigine rock and bark paintings. Employing the Australian native design aesthetic, third grade Summit art students were asked to use only dots and lines, limit themselves to a palette of earth tones and paint from a bird’s eye view.
By Kelley Wilson, Summit freshman
What is art? This is a question Jan Wiesner, art teacher for grades one through four at The Summit, posed to her first grade students. After many concrete answers, finally one young boy said, “It’s making your own ideas real with your very own hands.” His fellow classmates looked at him and said, “YES!”
He was right. The main focus of Mrs. Wiesner’s art class is
to develop the artistic abilities
inside all students to allow them to express themselves. Mrs. Wiesner,
who has taught art for thirty-one years, ten at The Summit, says, “Everyone’s
an artist. But if they can’t draw what they want to draw, they’ll
stop thinking of themselves as artists. My job is to teach them skills
so that their skills rise along with their expectations. Everything
I do is about trying to keep them open to their artistic selves.”
While some children become discouraged and tend to believe they don’t have any artistic ability, Mrs. Wiesner attempts to build their confidence. “The more you do art, the better your skills will be,” she said. “If I can get them to try, they’re automatically going to get better.”
However, what really sets The Summit’s art program apart from other schools’ is that art is in its mission statement. “It’s not seen as an extracurricular. I like that it’s seen as an important part in helping someone grow into a complete person. All the teachers are supportive of art projects, and they take time to look at student work and admire it. They have even based writing assignments on some work!” This interdisciplinary approach between art and core courses is also a trademark of The Summit’s art program.
