FARMINGTON — Sesha Rothert ran through the doors of Upcountry Artists’ gallery in downtown Farmington. As the 6-year-old flew into the crowded gallery opening, wearing a floor-length dress under a winter coat, she embraced her W. G. Mallett School art teacher Kim Jacques.
“Mommy and daddy are going to come here soon!” Sesha exclaimed.
Her grandfather, Steven Rothert, followed shortly, trying to keep up with his granddaughter who was eager to see a piece of her artwork on the walls of an art gallery.
The sense of pride that overtook young Sesha Friday afternoon was one of the goals of Upcountry Artists’ Youth Art Exhibition, which features 60 pieces of artwork from Regional School Unit 9 students in grades K-8. The exhibit will run through the end of April. A public gallery opening was held Friday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. to show off the students’ artwork, which for most of the students was the first time they had seen their work featured in a formal gallery setting.
“A gallery validates that (a piece of art) is worth sharing with the public,” said Lucia Swallow, organizer of the exhibit. “Not only a gallery, but also if a teacher says, ‘Take this home to mom and dad,’ and they put a cardboard frame around it. That validates that the (artwork) is special. And what does that do to one’s self confidence? It just builds. And as they build their self-confidence, they just get better at whatever (medium) of art they are interested in.”
Teachers, families, friends and students filled the opening Friday, as the Franklin County Fiddlers provided upbeat music for the crowd. Students were pulling the arms of their parents in every direction, eager to show them their own pieces of artwork as well as their classmates’ creations.
RSU 9 art teachers at Cascade Brook School, Academy Hill School, Cape Cod Hill School and W.G. Mallett School were each asked to choose 15 pieces of artwork from their students to be featured in the exhibit.
The teachers chose from work their students had already made during the school year, which resulted in an array of artistic mediums and styles featured in the exhibit.
Sesha Rothert’s painting was from a unit in her art class where the students could only use the primary colors of red, yellow and blue. Or, as better put by the artist herself, “we couldn’t use colors that were next to each other” on the color wheel.
What Sesha was able to create within those restrictions was a tri-toned painting of a fish. Her grandfather, a member of Upcountry Artists, said that painting is only one of the ways Sesha expresses herself through the arts.
“She was so excited when she got the letter — this is her thing,” he said, as his granddaughter tugged on his arm, pulling him toward a friend’s painting. “She paints and colors and works with beads.”
The exhibit sits in the front of the gallery located on Main Street in Farmington. It was originally only supposed to go through the end of March, when the National Youth Art Month comes to an end, but Swallow said the gallery has decided to keep the artwork up for another month.
Lauren Abbate — 861-9252
Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate
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