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Hazelwood West Middle Only School in State Chosen To Make Ornaments For White House Christmas Tree
Hazelwood West Middle School eighth grade student Fred Mwangi, left, listens to art teacher Elaine Eversgerd’s instructions on how to make a clay bird. The birds became ornaments for Missouri’s holiday tree, part of the White House’s Holiday Tree Display.
Hazelwood West Middle School chosen as only Missouri school to create ornaments for state’s White House holiday tree Art students in Elaine Eversgerd’s class at Hazelwood West Middle School are the only students in Missouri to create ornaments to decorate Missouri’s tree, part of the White House holiday tree display in Washington, D.C.
They made and decorated clay versions of the state bird, the eastern bluebird, which were encased in plastic globes. This year, there will be one main tree on display in the White House Visitors’ Center with 54 smaller trees arranged in a circle, one for each state and U.S. territory. The National Christmas Tree Lighting 2010 will be broadcast December 9 at 5:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.
“Steve Williams, the fine arts consultant for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, called me to ask if I would represent Missouri for the National Tree and would I ask my students to create the ornaments,” Eversgerd recalled. “I accepted. Then I received a call from Governor Nixon’s office with the same request.”
“Sometimes, you have to do lots of research as an artist,” she continued, explaining how she and her students prepared for the project by studying Missouri facts.
Eversgerd broke the project into three steps – creation, painting and packaging. Working with an appointed local artist, Michelle “Mike” Ochonicky, first instructed one of Eversgerd’s classes to take chunks of soft, easy-to-mold clay and crush the pieces to extract any air. Then they began to shape them into birds.
“Remember to make the body and head one piece,” Ochonicky said as she walked around the room, helping students. “As the clay dries, separate heads could fall off during shipping. We don’t want any headless birds.”
To help students envision the correct shape, Ochonicky passed out color close-up photos of the birds.
“Birds don’t have much of a neck. If you look at them, they really don’t,” Ochonicky said. “Art is in your eyes, not in your heads or in your abilities.”
After they shaped the clay into birds, Eversgerd and Ochonicky recommended detail steps, such as using fingers to make indentations for eye sockets and taking a scissor end or a pencil tip to add wing suggestions and tail feathers.
“This is a real thrill,” Ochonicky said. “There’s only one artist selected and one school selected per state. The ornament has to represent the state and only one design is selected.”
Student challenges included remembering to smooth out any cracks in the clay before the birds dried and to remember that sculptures are three-dimensional so they need to have a flat bottom to rest properly in the globes. Students also had to make sure the birds fit into the globes. If they were too large, students had to rework them to fit. Also, the tree the ornaments will hang from has flexible branches, so not only would the birds have to fit, the entire ornament could not make the branch droop excessively.
“I’m honored and privileged,” Eversgerd said of the opportunity. “I can’t believe they called me out of all the art teachers in the state.” (story courtesy of Hazelwood Communications Dept.)
