‘Imagine Brandywine’ project features the changing farmscapes of the Avon Grove District
Drawings by 160 fifth grade students from Avon Grove Intermediate School are on display at the Brandywine River Museum – Chadds Ford, through the end of February. The artwork is inspired by the disappearing farmscapes that used to dominate the Avon Grove School District. Art students examined images of five contemporary and/or historic farms in the district and then created their own expressions of the landscape using mixed, water-based media.
The fifth grade artists had visited the Brandywine River Museum of Art during their fourth grade year and had a chance to view the museum’s collection of works by the three generations of the Wyeth family. Paintings such as Jamie Wyeth’s Hill Girt Farm and Pumpkin March; N.C. Wyeth’s painting of Pyle’s Barn; and works by Andrew Wyeth of the Kuerner Farm and other rural locations provided inspiration. In May of 2015, the school’s art department received an invitation from the education department at the museum for a selection of students to exhibit original art work in the school area at the museum during the 2015-16 school year. The only criteria was that the art, in some way, be connected thematically to the museum’s collection, and that the works be a common, specified size.
The museum hosted an opening reception for artists and their families in early November. Additional student pieces that could not be accommodated by the special exhibition space are being displayed in-house at the Avon Grove Intermediate School until the end of February.
