Earlier this month, PS 8 students worked closely with college students and teachers from Parsons The New School For Design to create the fabulous murals currently on display in the entry hall and auditorium. This project was spearheaded by PS 8 parent and Parsons professor Maddy Schwartzman, along with her co-teacher, painter Emily Noelle Lambert. The Parsons students spent the better part of two Thursdays working with students in all classes, first brainstorming and then painting the murals. Below, you can see pictures of the murals and read an interview with Maddy about this project and Parsons’ partnership with PS 8.
Photo credits to Minuette Le and Maddy Schwartzman.
How many PS 8 classes were involved in the painting of the murals?
All of them. Yikes, we worked with over 550 students in one day.
How did you decide what to paint?
The murals were generated by how students filled in 8 and a half by 11 papers we provided asking for students’ views of friendship and collaboration. We passed out a cute page – with a frame and a pencil person – that said, “Draw a picture of friendship and collaboration.” The talking pencil person was designed by a Parsons student in a prior year . . . and was cute enough to make the kids want to fill in the frames!
Have you done things like this before at PS 8?
Yes, many things. We’ve been working at PS 8 since the 2008-09 school year. We’ve done sets for the play three times. We’ve made analytical plant growing devices with the third grade – some students did periscopes in which a plant sat and could receive only indirect light. That was a project that involved growing plants in unique situations and analysis and measurement with a heavy design component. Another time we made collaborative books about local history – like the Battle of Brooklyn, Walt Whitman, Robert Fulton, and the Underground Railroad. We made stop-motion animation, puppets and then we once did a battle reenactment with Ms. G including a script and costumes made out of Trader Joe’s bags and other recycled materials.
We’ve always worked at the school for four or five weeks, on Thursday only; one year we taught the third to fifth grades. We’ve scaled back from that.
Do you plan to work with PS 8 more this year?
Yes! Starting March 1st we and our same group of 36 Parsons students will collaborate with the whole third grade making Rube Goldberg machines – playful overly-complicated force and motion contraptions, like the game Mousetrap but more fun – designed to perform simple tasks and made out of household items. Our Parsons students will build their own Rube Goldberg machines and show them to the PS 8 students; the PS 8 students will then be inspired to make their own machines. For the Parsons students it’s an amazing opportunity to be on the other side of the fence – to share their design knowledge and invent teaching tools, pre-fabricated parts and accessible handouts. For the PS 8 students it’s an opportunity to design three-dimensionality, to think outside of the box, to engage in something very “in” in contemporary art, and to realize the potential of just about any household material as they work through design project that has to accomplish something. There’s so much potential in a plastic cup – so many magical things can come out of simple stuff.
How did you make the mural project happen?
I make films and videos, so I’ve gotten used to accomplishing giant tasks with big crews in a very short amount of time. I find it incredibly satisfying to have a big task like that, and then get it done. My co-teacher Emily, who is new to PS 8, has worked with the Guggenheim and kids for many years, so she brought a lot of experience to the project.
When I learned we weren’t going to be working on the set for the play this year, I went and talked to Principal Phillips and Mr. Mikos about what we might do instead and I suggested a mural. Principal Phillips responded that a mural “would be great; how about something about friendship and collaboration?” Our first Thursday at the school, small groups of students from our two 36-person Parsons sections went class to class and asked students to discuss and draw their vision of friendship and collaboration. Students drew hundreds of pictures – some holding hands, hugs, words like “trust.” Over the next week, the Parsons students made lay-outs based on the PS 8 students’ drawings. When they got to school on the second Thursday, they had about a half hour to mount the paper and to take their drawings and thoughts and put them on paper for the murals. Then at 10:30, the students started coming: Mr. Mikos scheduled four classes every half hour to come and help paint the murals. It was organized chaos.
What do you hope people who participated in painting got out of the experience?
From my Parsons students’ point of view, it’s about how something they usually do individually is brought out into the world, and the joy in collaboration. For PS 8, it’s about this giant communal project, and everyone having the idea that the entire school is working on one thing. How many times do we do something as the whole PS 8 community? We pass by the same walls but we don’t focus on the same things. It’s kind of magical now with the murals.
What do you hope people looking at the painting get out of the experience?
I think again it’s community: the community sees community. It’s also a window on the kids’ thinking, and about the power of art, the transformation of space. More than anything, though, is the idea of community, not only in imagery, but in action.
What exactly is the class you and Ms. Lambert co-teach at Parsons?
It’s a foundation course for students entering Parsons called “The Lab” and it is designed to engage the students in both design and New York City. This is the second semester of Lab. There are more than 450 students in the class, and they get to choose their sections based on five topics. Our section is called “Get Involved” and takes students into the larger community to work on design projects.
Have you done projects like this at other schools?
No, not me personally. We have done similar things at the New York Aquarium, and not with children but for children.
How long will the mural be up?
I don’t know. It may have to do with the life of the tape and the paper.
Do you hope to do something like this again at PS 8?
Why not? I like big projects! I like making a contribution to our community and my children’s school. It’s a win/win collaboration.
By Ansley Samson
