Art instructor Mary Youssef
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — During the past month, township children joined by local kids, enjoyed the 42nd year of the Bloomfield Summer Arts Workshop currently winding down in Bloomfield Middle School classrooms. The curriculum is under the direction of Jennifer Khoury, the fine and performing arts supervisor for the school district. More than 140 children attended this year.
Offered this year were instrument instructions for string instruments, band, voice, musical theater, guitar, ukulele and music technology plus an array of visual arts.
“We try to mirror the programs of the regular school year to continue study,” Khoury said at the school last week.
New to the summer fare is ukulele and music technology.
“The music technology has kids learning how to manipulate sounds,” she said. “It’s also been at the high school for about 10 years with its own teacher.”
Where to start?
In one classroom, the instructor is Bloomfield High School teacher Anastasia Monda. She is teaching a workshop in painting, sculpture and drawing for children from kindergarten to grade 12. They are divided into two classes, K-6 and 7-12.
“We try to do different things we might not do during the school year,” Monda said. “In sculpture, we work on a larger scale because of the smaller classes.”
Cardboard, papier mache and recycled materials are used. In the back of the room are Keith Haring-inspired sculptures. On the desks of children painting there are reproductions of Van Gogh, Frieda Kahlo, Courbet and Roy Lichtenstein. Monda said the students are learning different techniques from the masters. From Van Gogh, they learn how to use a variety of paint strokes; from Courbet, a representational, naturalistic approach to the subject; and from Lichtenstein, with his comics-inspired paintings, there are works that children find instantly relatable.
In the room next door, another district teacher is at work. This is Mary Youssef who teaches art, K-6, at Berkeley Avenue and Fairview elementary schools.
Her students have been making delicious-looking slices of cake from papier mache. The medium starts as a powder. Water is added, the material is then shaped and given two days to dry. Then decorated with acrylic paint or colorful sharpies. But it is not that easy. Youssef has her students first draw what they plan to create.
Also in the classroom are sandals made from clay that are air dried.
“They get ideas from each other, but they have their own projects,” Youssef said.
Clay is also made into leaves to explore and investigate natural shapes and photographs are sketched for proper proportions.
“They’re doing a great job so far,” Youssef said.
Across the hallway, ukuleles can be heard. This instrument is being taught by Sara Munson, a Fairview teacher until this past June. In September, she will be working in another district. Khoury said this is a loss.
Munson does a lot of singing and playing in her classroom while about 15 kids strum along. After class, she said what is good about the ukulele is that it is a genderless instrument.
“I see a lot of people covering it,” she said. “But the ukulele gets a rap for being easier than the guitar. But under the surface, there are a lot of things you have to do.”
She would like her students to be able to “work through the issues” of playing the instrument and learn on their own.
A pile of ukuleles are in the back of the classroom. Munson brought them over from Fairview, but some of her students went out and bought their own after a week.
“The students should always try to create something,” she said, “and just not replicate songs.”
By using just two chords, C and F — C can be played with one finger on the fretboard — Munson had her students making up songs about colors, going back to school, or if they were just promoted from the middle school, that nervous feeling they get contemplating high school.
Photos by Daniel Jackovino
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