The Art Cadre program returned to Palisades Charter Elementary this fall after a two-year absence, thanks to a 2012 grant from the Pacific Palisades Woman’s Club. The art class, which is held about three times a year for students in first through third grade, exposes students to artists who are not normally taught in public schools. The program was a brainchild of former Palisades Elementary parent Nancy Cassaro-Fracchiolla (now the Palisades High School drama teacher). In 2003, she told the Palisadian-Post, ‘I felt the need for children to express themselves outside the box. Art is often controlled in some classes. Children are taught these are Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ and this is how we draw them. I wanted students to be able do something without a right or wrong way to do it, just to be able to create. I wanted students to learn about artists off the beaten path.’ ‘For example, Alexander Calder is not on the school’s list of artists to study, but he invented the mobile,’ said Art Cadre teacher Saliann Kelly, noting other artists examined in previous years included Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Kruger, George Rodrigue, Louise Nevelson and Robert Rauschenberg. ‘I read that making art is a viable and valuable part of the education of the mind and the soul.’ Cassaro-Fracchiolla and Kelly, who received her fine-arts degree from the University of Arizona and teaches printmaking during the summer in Michigan, taught the program through 2010 for free, even after their children graduated from Pali Elementary. Kelly’s daughter, Claire Siwulec, is now a freshman at PaliHi, and Cassaro-Fracchiolla’s daughter, Alice, is a junior there, while son John, a 2012 Pali grad, attends Pratt Institute of Art in New York City. This year, Debra Demontreux, who taught at Palm Springs High School and is currently on sabbatical from La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks, has joined Kelly. Thanks to the Woman’s Club grant, there is now a small stipend for Kelly and Demontreux and money for supplies. The current Art Cadre project is a multi-step art process that will end with the hanging of 260 canvas flags, each about the size of an 8 x 11-1/2-inch piece of paper. The Post was invited to watch Stacy Muscarella’s third-grade class as they worked in a small room off the cafeteria that has been transformed into an art room. First, students were taught how to draw a self-portrait, which they did on a six-inch piece of canvas, then cut it out to be pasted on a flag. ‘We drew what we think we looked like,’ Lulu Gourrier said. ‘I imagined it,’ Amy Lopez said. Students were then asked to choose a word that they wanted to send out to the school and to the people who will view the flags. Felix Effron chose the word ‘believe’ because ‘People should believe in more things’-or less things.’ Noah Wexler chose ‘happiness’ because ‘I just liked that word.’ Arman Chinai chose ‘joyful’ because ‘I thought it was a pretty good word. Dream makes me sleepy and believe sounds like some other holiday.’ ‘I chose ‘read,” Cole Herron said, ‘because I love reading.’ ”Believe’ in yourself,’ Stella Brien said. ‘I have really big dreams. I want to be a singer, like the stars on the Disney Channel. My mom said you should follow your dreams, but you have to believe.’ Next, the students selected from a variety of brightly colored cloth strips that they pasted to the flags. Self-portraits were pasted on top of the strips on the front of the flag, with the words on the back. ‘I liked the drawing part best,’ Brien said, ‘because your hands don’t get stuck together.’ ‘My hands are glued together,’ Kai Corben said, who instead of putting glue on the material experimented with the chemistry of glue on fingers. ‘I like the gluing and pasting the best,’ Wesley MacMiller said. Principal Joan Ingle is still deciding where the 260 flags will be installed.
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