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On the Dot
ON THE DOT
A COLLABORATIVE ART INSTALLATION BY SIXTH GRADERS
You may not know the name of the artist who inspired this year’s sixth graders, but you’d probably recognize the whimsical work of Yayoi Kusama which predominantly features polka dots and pumpkins. In a collaborative yearlong effort, sixth-grade students not only studied Kusama, but they modeled the themes and colorful motifs found in her work through painting, paper maché, sculpture, and ceramics. Their learning was on display throughout April in an immersive Tuttle Gallery display—On the Dot—which the students installed themselves.
Art teacher Holly Thompson explains that each sixth-grade student had a part in the exhibition in some way, saying, “Every quarter, they created a different project based on the artist, and the fourth quarter students had the unique opportunity to organize, plan, and install the gallery show.”
Tuttle Gallery Manager Dave Radford, who taught the students how to hang and display the pieces, says that the unconventional floor-to-ceiling installation allowed the art to flow and work together. He explains, “The show was great for the sixth-grade mind. Their separate ideas worked together to create an experience that everyone could participate in.”
Upon entering On the Dot, visitors were encouraged to add dots to the walls around the art and to immerse themselves in an adjacent polkadot balloon-filled room.
“From beginning to end, On the Dot was a blast,” says Thompson. “The fact that the entire sixth grade had a hand in this project is really exciting to me both as an educator and artist. The students were able to see it as a whole art installation piece rather than a classroom project.”
