Michael Ganci, Local Media Editor, Syntax, for The Bronxville School

Jan. 20, 2016:  Bronxville High School students recently collaborated on a project that incorporated their Latin, artistic, and musical talents.

Students in Denise Flood's Latin class wrote poetry based on myths. Courtney Alan's Studio Art II students created illustrations and illuminated the calligraphic manuscripts. Then Denise Lutter's orchestra students composed a few original pieces to accompany the poems and manuscripts. 

The students' final projects were displayed in the newly renovated Bronxville School auditorium lobby for the orchestra/chorus concert on December 22.

"The process was quite powerful to watch because the students felt engaged," Flood said. "They worked together to refine the myths and go through variations of the process. It was almost as if my students who created the myths were the client and the art students were the illustrators. And the illustrators really wanted to do a great job to illustrate the best aspects of the myths."

As part of the project, the students in Flood's class learned calligraphy and calligraphic techniques. They provided their peers in Studio Art II with descriptive images about the myths' settings and their characters' traits.

The artists then went through the traditional creative process, parallel to that of a professional illustrator or medieval illuminator, which included brainstorming, collecting references, sketching ideas, refining drawings, and, finally, painting with gouache and creating patterns. Following the creative process, the orchestra students received one of the myths, "Nivia," as a prototype to create their original composition.

"My favorite part of this project was the end, when I saw how everybody's piece turned out and how the story was shown through different pieces," said junior Zoe Hutchings, whose project was about a woman whose tears started the first blizzard.

Sophomore Pilar Layton shared Hutchings's sentiments. "We were basing our illustrations off of myths that the Latin class students had written," the art student said. "They were short stories and didn't have a ton of description, so we got to use our artistic interpretation of how we felt our paintings should look."

To watch a video about the interdisciplinary project and view the final products, visit http://www.bronxvilleschool.org/about/news/high-school-art-music-and-latin-students-collaborate-project-watch-video/.

Pictured here:  Bronxville High School students' final projects were displayed in the newly renovated Bronxville School auditorium lobby for the orchestra/chorus concert on December 22.

Photo courtesy The Bronxville School