The students at Sant Bani were thrilled to be able to work with guest artist Mark Ragonese last month. He is an artist from VT who makes fantastic sculptures out of saplings. The HS art students talked a lot about line; imagining each sapling was a pencil line; straight, curved, bent etc. They made several forms overlooking the field to be admired by all.

The sapling structure art block was able to spend 2 hours with him building a shelter for the Upper Building shelter unit. It is large enough for a whole class to sit inside for class meeting or a picnic lunch. He did a great job encouraging each student to be involved and work together to pound holes, safely carry saplings, work in teams to gently bend and weave each sapling into place and tie the intersections together. He incorporated a beautiful story about magic seeds growing around a community and had the group all sit inside their new structure to tie the story back into what they had just accomplished by working together.

Mark also gave an inspirational talk to all of the Upper Building students and some High School students about how he evolved into an artist and that sometimes it is the little things we accomplish in our lives that are the most important. He correlated his statement with a stone sculpture he made right in front of the kids on the studio floor. He had them all notice which stones were doing the most work…the tiny ones that were balancing and holding up the big ones. Without them, the whole thing would fall over.

The students and staff had a great day with Mark and all learned a lot more than just how to make a sculpture.