Artist Brandi Hofer, who leads the Lloydminster Public School Division Art Academy with teacher Derek Kappel, unveiled the group’s latest piece of public art near the Kindergarten playground of College Park School. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
The placing of a colourful piece of public art near the Kindergarten playground at College Park School was well-timed.
It acted as another drawing card to a Lloydminster Public School Division Art Academy art show, held in the commons area of the school on Tuesday.
The approximately 350-pound cement megalith is one of 27 works of public art in a Faces of Lloydminster project by local sculptor Mick Classen.
It was painted by art academy students under the direction of Lloydminster artist Brandi Hofer and teacher Derek Kappel and set up in the playground last Thursday.
“It was a lot of fun and what we really learned from this experience as a group was the power and impact that public art could make,” said Hofer that day.
“Once we moved the piece out into the school ground they could see how impactful public art can be when people interact with it.”
The piece is meant to be crawled on, touched, sat on, and jumped on by kids of all ages.
“It’s going to be a beautiful exciting piece that represents exuberance, energy and love,” said Hofer.
It took several maintenance workers to carry the piece to its resting place to be admired as public art.
“I think the finished product looks great. The kids worked really hard on it,” said Kappel.
“Everybody got a chance to do their own individual art piece on the face and everybody’s really excited to get it out in the field.”
One of the young artists was Grade 7 student, Sophie Jacobson, who created three paintings with a meaning.
About her whale scene, she said, “I felt like I just wanted to do something ocean because there is a lot of plastic in the ocean. I think everyone should try to contribute to get rid of that, so I painted a place where there wasn’t plastic and there was a good ecosystem.”
She explained her lips with hearts painting was an attempt to do something different, noting normal is weird.
“It represents speaking to someone kindly and then letting them listen to you,” Jacobson said.
Her circles with blue dots were a symbol of friendship with her best buddy.
She too thinks the finished product looks good or cool, to quote her impression of it.
“When people see it, they’re just going to be so surprised and they’re going to want to go everywhere and look at all the different shapes and colours,” said Jacobson.
Many students like her used acrylic paint or Posca pens to make their art that is protected by a weather-resistant coating.
Art academy kids have also created two window murals as public art for businesses to display along with a day of culinary arts making pizzas at Spiro’s Family Restaurant.
Everyone in the art academy got the chance to exhibit all the work they curated over the past few weeks at the Tuesday art show.
The Lloydminster and District Co-op sponsored all the snacks and juice boxes.
