By Jennifer Solis
Correspondent
May 14, 2008 03:40 am WEST NEWBURY — It's time once again for Pentucket Regional High School's annual Arts Festival — a chance for the district to showcase the creativity of its students, the talent of its staff and the importance of its sequential arts program. The free festival is open to the public this Thursday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the high school. It features art by every student in the visual arts program, music ensembles, musical theater, theater performance, film and musical technology classes. Each year art department head Ellen Hart and her staff transform the high school into an art gallery and performance space — with paintings, sketches, and photographs on every wall, and vocal, instrumental, comedic and theatrical offerings around every corner throughout the building. Hart stresses the benefit she sees in a sequential program which provides her students with a framework for developing the skills, vocabulary and experiences they need to create and analyze their own art and that of others. As students progress through the program, their skills in thinking, working and communicating mature as they learn to intentionally manipulate tools and materials to create a desired effect, she notes. "Some of the work you will see by upper-level artists will ask you to think and will attempt to communicate an idea or concept. By employing skills developed through sequential arts classes, these young artists have learned to reflect their feelings, emotions and perception of the world," said Hart. Throughout the festival, small plates of refreshments and cold beverages will be on sale by the Pentucket Fine and Performing Arts Foundation (PFPAF) in the cafeteria. The foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the arts in the Pentucket schools. Festivalgoers will have a chance to learn more about SummerBlast, the foundation's creative arts program at a colorful display set up in the cafeteria. SummerBlast runs from July 7 to 18 for students from any town in grades one through 12. Sponsored by the Newburyport Five Cent Savings Bank, the program features a daylong Kidz Arts program for elementary school children as well as teen workshops run by Pentucket fine and performing arts teachers, including Hart, who is leading classes in oil painting and plein air painting. Other Pentucket teachers running workshops this summer include John DiTomaso, Aris Moore, Marcia Nadeau-Tanner and Megumi Sasaki. Several alumni artists are also SummerBlast instructors, including Sean Bixby, a Pentucket graduate and student of Hart's who is illustrating his first children's book. Bixby's 3-D illustration work has twice received distinction at the Society of Illustrators in New York City.
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