Glenbrook South's Public Art Collaborative gets creative
Oh, the humanities.
The course description for the senior-level humanities class Scott Glass teaches at Glenbrook South notes that, in addition to learning how people use creativity to express meaning, students will create their own works "that reflect on a variety of their experiences."
Some of his students jumped all over it.
A class discussion devoted to street art and the provocative British artist Banksy - an exhibit of his works comes this summer to, appropriately, a currently undisclosed Chicago location - incited what Glass called a "throwaway" line that class members should "do some street art."
The Public Art Collaborative was born.
Since March, 12 students have planned and completed two projects. The first is a mural-style piece inside the school. The upstart club's second and last project this school year is a mural created earlier this month along Hospital Drive, the street that runs between Glenbrook South and Glenbrook Hospital to the north.
"I wanted to impact the community with art, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do that as a senior. I also wanted to work with others in order to do that," said Collaborative member Destiny Astorga.
The DePaul-bound senior is a joiner. Asked if she was in other clubs at school Astorga said, "I have to get the list."
It included Glenbrook South clubs for fencing, Japanese language, board games, the "Gamers Club" and SAGA, the Sexuality and Gender Alliance Club.
"I tend to really like making art outside of class, and I couldn't really find time just for making art because I felt like I had so many clubs and activities. But some of the other clubs started to end, and I picked up this one," she said.
The first project, set up after spring break, was a direct offshoot of the club's emphasis on creative expression. The title was simply "Prioritize Expression," somewhat of a combination recruitment piece and artwork posted on a wall outside the school library across from the main cafeteria.
With no real guidelines other than a general color palette of blue and gold, each of the club members decorated up to a dozen United States Postal Service Priority Mail stickers and turned them into colorful statements of the title and the club. For remote learners, Glass made a template that could be sent via computer.
Stickers also were available at the school's front desk for people not in the club to add to the wall or to decorate and return to Glass to apply to the piece.
"I'm still getting stickers, and when I'm walking by I'll notice stickers I didn't get," said Glass, an English teacher for 24 years at Glenbrook South.
On the morning of May 8, the club took it outside to create a mural on Hospital Drive. The mural essentially was a large-scale thank-you note to the hospital and health care workers.
With the Public Art Collaborative presently consisting entirely of seniors, Glass is hoping that in its brief history it has been inviting enough and gained enough exposure that newer members will join the club in 2021-22.
"If nothing else, I know I'll be able to grab next year's humanities students, but it would be nice to grab some younger students," he said.
The stress being on expression, Glenbrook South students needn't be the next Renoir to participate.
"Creating art is something that we're all compelled to do. It's a deeply human activity, anybody can do it whether we're trained to do it or not," he said.
Astorga would agree. She was admitted to DePaul to study psychology, though she will enter college with her major undecided.
"I am not an art student," she said.
"You don't need art experience to be creative. You've just got to have fun."