Students donate art supplies

Pulaski elementary school teachers Sarah Norris (second from left) and Joe Repetti (second from right) accept donated art supplies from UD students Adam Neesbit (left) and Anya McDavis-Conway.

3:13 p.m., Dec. 23, 2004--UD’s Department of Art Conservation adopts an art room each holiday season. This year, Pulaski Elementary School in Wilmington was selected for adoption.

The art conservation faculty, staff and grad students, with assistance from staff and students in UD’s Winterthur Program, personally buy paints, pencils, paper, brushes, markers, crayons, erasers and materials for collages, according to Debra Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts and chairperson of the Department of Art Conservation, and the firm of Nielsen & Bainbridge donates mat board for the project.

“We have been doing this for about seven years and have given supplies to Girls Inc. and schools in the community as a holiday outreach program that is linked to art conservation and art,” Norris said.

“The teachers are delighted, the children are excited, and we have fun doing it. We visit the schools, talk to the students about art and art conservation and look at the wonderful art projects that are going on. This is a way to encourage up and coming artists,” she said.

Thanks to a grant from the Wyeth Foundation, the art conservation department has a program that encourages appreciation of American art with a conservation component. Jae Mentzer, who graduated from UD with a master’s degree in art conservation, is a limited-term researcher with the department and develops lesson plans and after-school programs on American art and conservation for fourth- and fifth-graders, Norris said.

Photo by Kevin Quinlan

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.