Butler students creating ‘Art Alley’
Butler Area School District students are working on projects which they hope will become public art.
Students of Butler Intermediate and Senior high schools are working on creating an “Art Alley” in Butler, and on Friday, Nov. 1, they showed off some early concepts at the Penn Theater, where younger students also listened to directions they could take the project.
One demonstration by students in a video production class at the senior high school used projection mapping to display a video of students waving through four windows in a Christmas display. It will debut Nov. 30 at Butler’s Spirit of Christmas event, and it is just one of the pieces 12th-grade student Eli Snyder is looking forward to displaying.
“It’s not something that everybody gets to do,” Eli said. “This is a cool thing to have worked with.”
Carrie Morgan-Davis, assistant director of curriculum, instruction and professional development at Butler school district, said the creation of the Art Alley is possible through money from Remake Learning’s Moonshot Grant. On Friday, seventh- and eighth-grade students heard from Steve Cicero, the “History Hobo,” about significant historical events students could work into the Art Alley.
The Art Alley may take the rest of the school year to finish, but the projection mapped images and videos students created were completed in just a few weeks.
Erik Robbins, a video production teacher at Butler Senior High School, said the school received a new application this school year, which can be used to design images and animations in a 3D space. He said the students immediately took to it and were able to create a presentation for the Penn Theater in just a few weeks.
Robbins said the application already is allowing students to get real-world experience in designing advertisements for school productions and events. The public rollout will be at the Spirit of Christmas parade, but there are a few other events where the students’ designs will be used.
“We’re going to a football game; we’re going to be outside the school play,” Robbins said. “It’s going to be something cool when people walk in.”
