Hallway art project unites Woodside school: Mural Magic

When Clarisse Frenkel, an art teacher at J.H.S. 125 in Woodside, was scheduled to shuffle between rooms to teach six different classes throughout the week she decided to designate a special place for her sixth and fifth graders - a tropical lagoon that the kids themselves would create.
&#8220For lack of a room, we decided to take a huge space and make it into a working art studio,” Frenkel said, describing the first-floor hallway where about 40 students have been painting a tropical seascape for the past three months. &#8220Everybody sees this every day, and we wanted to brighten the space.”
&#8220Ms. Frenkel and the other art teachers have done well improvising,” said the school's assistant principal, Brenda McClellan, explaining that the school has three art teachers, with only one art room for 1,700 students. &#8220Certainly having at least two of these [art classrooms] would help.”
Although students are required to take art, band, chorus or dance, most take art because the art department has the largest staff. Painting, sketches, photographs, collages and mix-media line the school's walls and classrooms, but the mural has gotten special attention.
Opposite a bland salmon-colored wall, which contains foreboding barred windows, the mural - an 8-foot-high stretch of bright blue with splashes of red, orange, yellow, green and purple - is eye catching.
&#8220Butiful,” &#8220gogus” and &#8220it shows pashion,” the art students' young classmates wrote on a comment sheet hanging alongside the 40-foot-wide mural.
The underwater painting is far from finished according to the kids involved in the project. Reflections in the water and blending of colors still have to be done, as well as adding a fleet of small boats above sea level. Some fish are only partly painted and others now navigate the acrylic waters without gills.
In addition to the actual painting, the children had to learn about the sea creatures they illustrated, depicting natural fish shapes, and paint using perspective to show size, distance and scale.
The students, however, were determined to finish the project by school's end in June.
If Christopher Paredas, 11, had his way, the mural might already be finished. Paredas suggested that students begin painting in the morning at 7 a.m. instead of the 7:30 a.m. normal start.
Paredas and about nine other students have painted early in the morning four days per week with Frenkel since the Board of Education extended the school day by 37 minutes in February. The 10 students do not need tutoring, which was the reason why the school day was extended, but they chose to come in for extra art.
&#8220I wake up at 6 a.m. I come here everyday to paint,” Paredas said.
Paredas' hasn't always been so artistically inclined.
On the first day of class, the outspoken sixth-grader marched into Frenkel's class and informed her that he was supposed to be in band, not art.
&#8220I didn't like art,” he said. &#8220Now, I really like it.”
Frenkel said that several students in her group, one that others have called &#8220difficult,” have undergone remarkable transformations because of the project.
&#8220They really developed and bonded with each other. It changes the whole psyche of the kids if they are involved with a long-term project,” she said.
Students who have trouble concentrating for even short periods were able to paint for the entire class, and disputes between the kids dissolve when they are working on the mural, Frenkel said.
Sixth graders Juthi Ghosh and Sharmina Khan also didn't have much faith in their artistic abilities before the project.
&#8220At first I thought it would be really hideous,” Ghosh said.
&#8220But it's coming out really well,” she said beaming.