With plantings of loquat, banana and peach trees, muscadines vines and blueberry bushes, Apalachee Tapestry Magnet School of the Arts may seem more like an orchard than an elementary school. That’s the goal of art teacher Ashley Chandler as she transforms the campus into an artful garden filled with edibles as well as artworks inspired by famous artists. 

In graduate school at Florida State University, Chandler studied art education and was encouraged to identify a social justice issue to focus on during the development of her thesis. “I realized gardening and taking care of the environment has always been with me. I did my research on integrating art making with building structures, gardening and landscape design. The COCA grant gave me the opportunity to have my graduate research actually come to fruition.”  

Chandler applied for and received an Arts Education Grant from the Council on Culture & Arts. With the grant funds, she was able to purchase materials to implement her “Growing Light” project. With a friend’s help, she started with the garden trellis. Chandler recognized the geometry of the trellis structure would provide an opportunity to introduce students to Piet Mondrian, a Dutch artist who helped shape modern abstract art.

Additionally, it would help them practice math skills. 

“A lot of them are struggling with fractions,” Chandler said. “I introduced them to Mondrian’s ‘Composition II with Red, Blue and Yellow’ and showed them they could divide their paper into fractions to create artwork inspired by him. They saw they could test themselves and practice fractions using art.”

Students also got the opportunity to study one of Mondrian’s most recognizable paintings ‘Broadway Boogie-Woogie.’ 

The painting is comprised of intersecting lines of yellow, punctuated with squares and rectangles of blue and red. Fourth-grader Aaron Webster said “when I look at it, I think of a city. There’s little red cubes and I think of those as little shops. The big cubes are work buildings to me.”  

Using this work of art for inspiration, Aaron and his fourth and fifth-grade classmates set out to recreate the spirit of the artwork onto the garden trellis structures by painting similar shapes in bold primary colors.

Read the rest of the story by visiting the Tallahassee Democrat

or read more by downloading the article here