ARTS & CULTURE
Creativity takes courage A day in the life of Thompson Intermediate School’s art club Story and Photos by LAURA BROOKHART
T
ake a look around Gaile Randall’s classroom at Thompson Intermediate School in Alabaster, and it’s clear she loves
her job. The classroom and surrounding walls are filled with student artwork. The bulletin board reminds Randall’s art class students and devoted Art Club students, as well as all who travel the hall, that “Creativity takes courage!” Randall’s weekly after-school program is a way for students to have a greater involvement in art throughout the year, serving as an enhancement to those who want more art education 10 | ShelbyLiving.com
than the standard curriculum offers. It also allows for more opportunities and the freedom to try different and new mediums as well as expound, experiment and refine technique. “The projects are student — and passion — driven,” Randall said. “I just provide the desired materials and help guide them in technique and execution of the different mediums.” Recently, in the weekly after-school program taught by Randall, students were creating self-portraits in paper mosaic and painting figurative clay sculptures symbolizing themselves and their interests. Katherine Lillie plays travel volleyball, so it is no surprise that her sculpture is
a pig-tailed volleyball player, wearing kneepads, crouched in position to serve. Zac Rogers chose to pose City League baseball player Timothy Monahan, complete in detail and dreadlocks. Rogers said his favorite project so far this year has been creating glow-in-thedark painted paper-mache masks. His was a Cyclops with three eyes. After Morris Lane placed the eyebrows cut from black paper, on his paper-cut out self-portrait, it was immediately obvious that what was to follow would indeed be recognizably his own face. Lane has already established a signature look — he wears a different tie to school everyday. “I think the tie