Pond Life and Animal Houses. Animals Show Us the Alphabet

Artist: Wendy Anderson/Nancy Snow
Date: 2000
Media: Painted murals
Location: Clarence Rogers School Interior, 199 Wilmont Road

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The two mural cycles painted by Great Walls Murals (the team of Wendy Anderson and Nancy Snow) demonstrate how visual art can reinforce core concepts taught at the elementary school level. For example, according to the artists Animals Show Us the Alphabet encourages students to recognize both lower and upper case letters, as well as matching animal names and their activities with the letter they correspond to (for example, "the jaguar is eating jello").

In Pond Life and Animal Homes students can also recognize the water versus land animals, and follow the sequence of events as animals change, such as the caterpillar to butterfly. Showing a cross section of animal homes demonstrates the importance of questioning and looking inside and under things to find out how things "work."

The work was painted freehand by the artists.

What do you see? Strange Fruit

Artist: Mundy Hepburn
Date: 2001
Media: Blown Glass
Location: Katherine Brennan School Interior, 200 Wilmont Road

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A particularly interesting work of art for an energy conscious age, Mundy Hepburn's fluorescent light sculptures work on the same principle invented by Nikola Tesla in 1899. Long-lasting and relatively inexpensive (as compared to the light bulb), Hepburn's sculptures are made from blown glass filled with inert gases, whose light and color change with high frequency static electricity. Hepburn's intent was to create sculpture that blended science and art.

Two flameproof display cases are set into the walls of the lobby and cafeteria areas. Designed to be interactive, the forms change color as differing wavelengths travel through the organic forms. Thus, a student's hand placed against the Lexan plastic will change the light.