Artfully Done

Lower School art program flourishes in its own dedicated space, thanks to an anonymous donor

HPA Alexandra Bates Hustace ’94, lower school art teacher
Alexandra Bates Hustace ’94, lower school art teacher

If some clever person had many years ago set up a time-lapse camera in the art rooms in which Alexandra Bates Hustace ’94 now teaches her Lower School students, they’d find that the space has seen many iterations throughout its long life. “I actually attended first grade in this room,” Hustace explains, adding that her new digs also have served, at one point or another, as a boarding lounge, a counselor’s office, a physical education classroom, and even an efficiency apartment. Now, thanks to a generous anonymous gift, the space has been beautifully renovated.

For Hustace, the new art classroom is a complete game changer, ushering in new pedagogical opportunities for her and her students, while simultaneously creating important scheduling flexibility for HPA’s Lower and Middle Schools. “Prior to the renewal of the new K-5 space, Jane Taylor ’68 [long-time Middle School art instructor] and I shared the original art room, which meant that both the schedule of classes and the storage for our supplies and projects were extremely tight,” says Hustace. “The new classroom has resolved those issues quite ingeniously.”

Beyond offering both Lower and Middle School students their own designated spaces for the creation of art, the new K-5 classroom, explains Hustace, is allowing her to introduce intellectual exercises that help her young charges better understand artistic concepts and contexts. “What is really special,” she says, “is that the renovation has given us two distinct spaces within the classroom. One side serves as the studio, and has moveable tables, a sink and counters, and lots of windows for the children to look out as they create. The other side, which is really an extra room that was once an office, is what I call the ‘Thinking Room,’ and it has become key to my pedagogy. This is where we start our lessons, often by using the ‘Artful Thinking’ approach developed by Project Zero at the Harvard School of Education. Art is so exciting to the students that they can be eager to just get in the studio and set to work. The Thinking Room gives them an opportunity to view and cogitate on various art and artistic concepts before we even pick up our paintbrushes.”

Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the fall 2018 issue of Ma Ke Kula.

Bravo!

Thanks to the McMackin ‘ohana, the Gates Performing Arts Center has never sounded better