PARK STREET ACADEMY HOSTS 3RD ANNUAL SENIOR ART MUSEUM (SAM) A FINE ART EXHIBIT, FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY
MONTCLAIR, NJ – May 14, 2018: Park Street Academy (PSA), a private pre-school and kindergarten located in Montclair, NJ, will host SAM (Senior Art Museum), a special, one-night-only, pop-up museum exhibit on May 18, 2018 beginning at 6:30 PM. This show will feature over 400 works created by 40 talented Senior South and Senior North students based on a fully-immersive year-long art curriculum designed by PSA Director and longtime educator, Lisa Raphael.
SAM will showcase the work of PSA students between 4-6 years old, inspired by great artists they studied throughout the year – ranging from the conceptual art of Wayne Thiebaud to the stained glass works of Marc Chagall, the “dots” made famous by Yayoi Kusama, Picasso’s “Blue Period,” Jim Dine’s hearts and more.
While many schools feature art programming, PSA’s SAM exhibit illustrates exactly how a more robust exposure to the world of fine arts at a young age can have a major impact on preschoolers and kindergarteners. With Raphael’s in-depth approach, students explored art concepts such as lines and shapes, primary and secondary colors and shading. They also studied different genres in art, learning about the history of each movement and the lives of each artist highlighted in the show.
“In addition to math and reading skills, art is a major building block in child development, and learning to create and appreciate visual beauty may be even more important to the development of the next generation of children” explains Raphael. “Being exposed to the world of fine arts at a young age can open up an entirely new world, giving children the vocabulary to speak about his or her favorite artist, recognize a famous painting or ask to use a variety of media to create a masterpiece of his or her own.”
Neuroscience research shows that a child’s engagement in early art activities can help create unique brain connections by promoting problem solving, decision making and other cognitive skills. Students also experience fine motor skill development because holding a pencil, oil pastel, piece of chalk, crayon, or marker – and cutting with scissors or controlling the amount of glue to use – can be challenging tasks for a preschooler to accomplish. What’s more, art offers children an important outlet for emotional expression. Discussion of cool and warm colors, why artists use them and how certain colors make them feel are wonderful ways to understand emotions. Studying the fine arts also opens up a world of creativity and a deeper understanding of culture, history and diversity.
