Trash turns into art at Ben Logan
By DAN ROBINSON, Thursday, October 21, 2010
Kenton Times newspaper
| mmm |  |
Students at the Benjamin Logan Middle School use hand drills to attach pop tops and container lids to the artwork on sections of plywood in the school’s library. The finished product will be a colorful display of a tree and four seasons to be set up in the school’s commons.
|
BELLEFONTAINE - The library of the Benjamin Logan Middle School isn’t as quiet as normal this week.
The sounds of 15 hand drills fill the normally peaceful area, but the children taking part in a community-wide project don’t seem to mind the disturbance. They are having fun and creating a masterpiece at the same time.
The students are under the watchful eye of artist Michelle Stitzlein, who specializes in making murals and free-standing pieces of art from what most people would consider trash.
In the case of Benjamin Logan, the students are screwing pop bottle caps, container lids and laundry detergent tops into a colorful mural to be put on display in the school.
Art teacher Jennifer Davis first met Stitzlein when she took part in a workshop sponsored by the Ohio Art Educators Association. Part of the experience was for the teachers to visit Stitzlein’s studio in Baltimore, southeast of Columbus. Davis said when she saw what the artist had created out of recycled objects, she knew she had to find a way to bring Stitzlein to her students.
On display were artworks made from discarded piano keys, recycled bicycle tires and an array of other eye-catching works.
Six years ago, said Stitzlein, she had been asked to help an art class develop a project. At first, she said, she questioned how to approach the creation. She feared some of the material she uses would be unsafe for the students to handle. She settled on a mural created from bottle caps and since then has assisted in more than 50 similar projects, including a large reproduction of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
“Plastic lids come in a thousand different colors,” she said. “And they can be made into something beautiful rather than something ugly in the landfill.”
Davis gained a grant through the Logan County Educational Service Center from Logan County Waste Management for $1,000 to get the Benjamin Logan project started. She also secured a donation from the Ohio Lumber Co. of 10,000 metal screws.
Soon parents, grandparents and neighbors throughout the school district were saving the tops from soft drink, milk jugs and even cottage cheese containers for the project.
The students separated the various sizes and shaped tops by color into boxes, while the seventh and eighth grade students drew the images on five sheets of plywood. The mural is being done in sections, but once it is completed, it will show a tree with the four seasons around it.
Wednesday the fifth grade students took their turns at attaching the pieces to the board.
Before beginning, Stitzlein instructed the students on the proper way to handle the battery-operated hand dri~.
“Most of these kids have never had a drill in their hands before,” said Davis. “We stress safety and tell the kids these are tools, not toys. So far we haven’t had any trouble.”
Once the work is completed, the large mural will be on display outside the library in the schoors commons area.
“The kids are so excited about this,” said Davis. “They are super anxious to get it put together and hung in the commons.”