Now in its ninth year, the K-12 Public Art Project connects students and teachers with professional teaching artists in the area to create an outdoor public art piece for display at the Flint Hills International Children's Festival. Each year, students research a theme and art form, learn about the art form's tools and materials, design a project, and create a final work, under the expert instruction of their arts specialist at school and professional visual artists. Students, teachers, and artists involved in the project docent the work and engage Festival-goers in hands-on demonstrations. This year, students from Patrick Henry High School will work with artist and composer, Philip Blackburn, to create a sonic element that complements an outdoor installation of a floral mosaic carpet. Past projects include the Copper Tree in 2003, the Clay Masks in 2004, Copper Kiosks in 2005, Mosaic Benches in 2006, and the Chagall Village, Sumi-e, and Bridgeview Kites in 2007. Past projects are displayed at the Festival each year in the Sculpture Garden. Read Philip Blackburn's blog about this year's project
Working with composer Philip Blackburn, Patrick Henry High School teacher Liz Kotek and her students experimented with and recorded sounds from cabbage, coconut water, pine cones, watermelon and other fruit and veggie instruments to create music samples that were composed into The Singing Garden Soundtrack. Teacher Lisa Tenhoff led her students through a design exercise to artistically cover the speakers involved in the installation. Both teachers and their students came to the Festival to help with the installation of the Garden. As an added bonus on sonic experimentation, a Bird of Paradise plant (grown by Preston Wright) was wired with a brainwave sensor that sent electrical MIDI data to a MaxMSP patch programmed by J. Anthony Allen. The computer triggered samples of vegetable and plant-based sounds. By approaching, touching, and interacting with the leaves Festival-goers could hear how their actions affected the intelligent plant’s response. Their music was created to compliment the floral artistry of artists and horticulturalists from the City of Saint Paul, Blooming Saint Paul planting initiative, Angela Koebler and Mark Grandlund, whose design blanketed Market Street. Special thanks goes to Gertens, Kern Landscaping, Len Busch Roses and Carlin Horticultural Supplies for their generous support of this collaboration.
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