Staff, students and community members of Kenston Schools recently had the luxury of seeing an immense quantity of artwork at the district’s ninth annual Fine Arts Showcase.
Staff, students and community members of Kenston Schools recently had the luxury of seeing an immense quantity of artwork at the district’s ninth annual Fine Arts Showcase.
Visitors walked through the Kenston High School gymnasium April 29 to May 2 to see a blend of two- and three-dimensional work, including drawings, paintings, printmaking, mixed media, collages, digital designs, ceramics, 3D models, jewelry, abstracts, dioramas and figures, also in a wide range of styles and materials.
“It’s always amazing. The showcase always seems to be well received by the community, student body and staff,” district Program Director Todd Malkus said in an interview May 10. “It’s also a great indicator of the Kenston local schools’ support of the fine arts.”
The showcase highlighted the high school and middle school bands’ and choirs’ instrumental and vocal performances inside the Robert A. Lee Auditorium.
The first fine arts showcase took place in 2016 with the idea of offering a cohesive kindergarten-through-12th-grade music and visual arts experience to the entire student body and surrounding community, Malkus said.
“Prior to 2016, we did have an annual art show and there were spring concerts, but they didn’t occur at the same time. Combining the two events only made sense,” he said. “One of those years, during COVID, there was a virtual visual arts showcase online. The showcase is usually at the end of April/first week of May and is coordinated with prom weekend, AP exams and senior projects.”
Malkus said the showcase is a year-round event and students begin developing their work on day one of school.
“In the process of producing work for their classes, college entry portfolios and work for other art competitions, they are basically creating this year’s show,” Malkus said. “Many students cap off their artistic journey here at Kenston with their own Advanced Placement Senior Solo Display, which is a key component of each year’s showcase.”
He noted the high point of each year’s show for art educators is seeing senior AP students finish their display.
“When they finish and take a step back and are able to see years of hard work presented in one place at one time is always the most memorable,” he said. “The sense of pride that shows on their face at that moment is worth every bit of work that goes into putting the event together.”
Malkus said the ultimate goal is sharing the amazing work done by the music and visual arts students at Kenston.
“Each year brings a new set of artists with new outlooks, methods, concepts and individual voices. Every moment in the classroom is unlike the last or the next,” Malkus said. “The uncertainty of what the future holds combined with the awesome skills of our current artists are pretty exciting and should yield more amazing new work.”
