White Salmon Art Walk displays student projects (photo gallery)

At Whitson’s display of student-made art pieces, landscapes made of yarn from the second graders, and treasure maps stained with coffee made by third graders, line the wall of the elementary school gym.

At the district mutipurpose facility down the street, students displayed vases made from plastic bottles, ceramic monsters with more than two eyes, and a huge variety of multi-media and mixed artworks.

The White Salmon Arts Walk gives students the opportunity to feel prideful about successfully completing their project. For elementary schoolers, it’s also a good chance for them to learn valuable skills that will carry on into their intermediate and middle school careers, said Enrichment Specialist Stephanie Going, who helped to organize the art show.

“By the time they leave here, they have a few skills and are capable of doing different art techniques,” she said.

Ashley Renfrew, art teacher at Wallace and Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate and Henkle Middle schools, said her projects, which included those handmade vases, are structured to be challenges for the students to think creatively to solve real-world problems.

“Art can be a way to solve problems. I really like student to be challenged because it’s realistic,” Renfrew said.

By turning plastic bottles into vases, the students learned how to turn waste into something not just useful, but beautiful as well.