Shira Engel ’14 previews the Middletown Public Schools Art Exhibition (Mar. 10-18)
Mar. 7, 2012 by sengel01
Shira Engel ’14 contemplates the upcoming Middletown Public Schools Art Exhibition, opening March 10.
Twice a week, I foray off campus to the Woodrow Wilson Middle School as part of the student-run community partnership between Wesleyan and the full-time residents of Middletown. Wesleyan is replete with a plethora of programs that serve as points of connection between neighbors, creating pores in a much-talked-about campus bubble. These programs involve tutoring, among them WesReads/WesMath, Woodrow Wilson, and Traverse Square. They also inherently involve the arts, either implicitly through the tutoring programs, or explicitly through the work students from kindergarten to high school ages do through facilities like Green Street, Buttonwood Tree, and Oddfellows Playhouse.
I knew about a lot of these programs and venues before my time at Woodrow Wilson, but one of my tutees has enlightened me further with his firsthand account of all they have to offer. The first thing he told me when I said I went to Wesleyan was that he loves going to dance performances in the Center for the Arts. Creativity served as a perfect and much-needed icebreaker for our first session. Creativity is a link between our different lives and age groups.
This week, after talking to my tutee about dance at Wesleyan, I returned my “Wesleyan Tutor” badge to the main office only to see a poster for a Middletown Youth Arts Exhibit, which, come Saturday March 10, will be held at the CFA’s very own Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery.
Right when Wesleyan students go on spring break, Middletown kids will take over the CFA with their original art, claiming their rightful place in Wesleyan creative life, which is representative not just of this campus, but of the greater world. It is a true creative collaboration between the schools and Wesleyan University.
So, if you happen to be hanging around campus an extra day and can free up an hour from your thesis work or whatever may have you chilling here, come check out this talent! At 5pm on Saturday, March 10 is a free opening reception for the exhibit, which is sponsored by the Middletown Board of Education, Middletown Public Schools Cultural Council and Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts. Come support your neighbors through the common bond of creativity.
The exhibition will be open from Saturday, March 10 to Sunday, March 18 at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. The gallery is open Monday through Friday, noon to 7pm and Saturday & Sunday, 1pm to 4pm. The opening reception will held from 5pm to 7pm on March 1o. Admission is free.
