'Art of the Heart' Show to Open Monday
By Kimberly Marcott Weinberg
Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing
Betsy Matz is not the kind of person to just let an idea fester. She likes to do something about it.
So when the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford professor saw a Facebook post about The Compassion Project in Appleton, Wis., the wheels in her mind started turning of how to do something similar in Bradford.
The Art of the Heart project in Bradford is now involving hundreds of people throughout the community, including students from every school, Pitt-Bradford and the Kiwanis Club of Bradford.
At the center of the project is a simple idea: Have children talk and learn about compassion, then depict that in art on 4-inch square tiles. Each child painted his or her own tile with paint markers.
The hundreds of tiles that make up the “Art of the Heart” show can be seen from June 4 through June 15 in the KOA Art Gallery of Blaisdell Hall at Pitt-Bradford. Gallery hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. June 4.
Why make art of compassion? Matz felt that the time was ripe.
“Times have been hard recently, and it’s important now,” she said, referring to the effects of the national recession. “It was time to bring it to the forefront. We have an obligation to help each other out.”
The idea dovetailed nicely with the anti-bullying education program of the Bradford Area School District, which became one of the first allies of the project.
With the school district on board, Matz felt strongly that the project should not be funded by Pitt-Bradford or the district, but rather by the community as a way of expressing that compassion is a community-wide value. She worked with the Bradford Area Chamber of Commerce, which helped secure donations.
As the chair of the Division of Management and Education at Pitt-Bradford, Matz next turned to the university’s education faculty, which jumped on board with its students to design lessons to be taught about compassion.
The lessons for children at both the elementary and middle school levels included stories based on Aesop’s Fables. The younger children heard the story of The Lion and the Mouse, which was acted out by education students in Dr. Donna Dombek’s capstone course. The story is about a mouse who, when caught by a lion, begs to be let go, promising to help the lion one day. The lion scoffs, but takes pity on him and lets him go. When the lion is caught in a trap made of ropes, the mouse fulfills his promise by chewing through the ropes to free him.
Middle school students heard the story of a runaway slave who takes pity on a wounded lion and removes a thorn from its pad. Later the runaway slave and the lion met again in the Roman Coliseum, where the lion recognized the slave and did not harm him.
The education students then led the middle schoolers in a discussion of compassion and empathy and urged them to identify a time when someone was kind to them or when they were kind to another person.
In Janelle Turk’s art class last month at Fretz Middle School, the students tried to relate these stories on the tiles. It was difficult.
“It was hard to think of something to paint because there are so many things that go into compassion, like caring and friendship,” said seventh-grader Jack Pecora as he sketched out a peace sign on scratch paper.
While some students tried to depict specific incidents of someone helping a child change a bicycle tire or a student helping another pick up dropped books, many reached for colorful iconography, depicting hearts of all kinds, peace symbols and stick figures holding hands.
The bright paint pens on the tiles lend a joyful quality to the paintings.
Seventh-grade student Molly Frederick knew exactly what her hands holding a heart were about. She painted them, she said, to remember a friend who had died of leukemia, pointing to the brightly colored rubber bracelets with “Livestrong” and other uplifting slogans imprinted on them lining her own arms and the arms in the painting.
Although some students struggled with how to depict their ideas about compassion, it was clear that the project had gotten them thinking about the subject, Turk said. “They were also excited because they got to interact with students from the university and because their tiles will be on display downtown.”
Various offices and student groups on campus pitched in with designing and constructing the panels that will hold the tiles on display, and Nancy Kloss, the administrative assistant for Matz’s division, has made it her personal mission to be able to find each tile easily in a listing available at the display site.
Members of the Kiwanis Club of Bradford recruited by the Rev. Stacey Fussell, pastor of the Church of the Ascension, will act as docents during the exhibit and help people find their student’s tile.
“We’ve gotten a really good response from the community,” Matz said. When the display comes down, students will be able to reclaim their tiles, or businesses can continue to display them as a reminder to be more compassionate.
Pictured, art teacher Janelle Turk with seventh-grade student Jack Pecora of Bradford; and Morgan Whitlow working on her tile.
The news leader of the Twin Tiers ...
since 1947
Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing
Betsy Matz is not the kind of person to just let an idea fester. She likes to do something about it.
So when the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford professor saw a Facebook post about The Compassion Project in Appleton, Wis., the wheels in her mind started turning of how to do something similar in Bradford.The Art of the Heart project in Bradford is now involving hundreds of people throughout the community, including students from every school, Pitt-Bradford and the Kiwanis Club of Bradford.
At the center of the project is a simple idea: Have children talk and learn about compassion, then depict that in art on 4-inch square tiles. Each child painted his or her own tile with paint markers.
The hundreds of tiles that make up the “Art of the Heart” show can be seen from June 4 through June 15 in the KOA Art Gallery of Blaisdell Hall at Pitt-Bradford. Gallery hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. June 4.
Why make art of compassion? Matz felt that the time was ripe.
“Times have been hard recently, and it’s important now,” she said, referring to the effects of the national recession. “It was time to bring it to the forefront. We have an obligation to help each other out.”
The idea dovetailed nicely with the anti-bullying education program of the Bradford Area School District, which became one of the first allies of the project.
With the school district on board, Matz felt strongly that the project should not be funded by Pitt-Bradford or the district, but rather by the community as a way of expressing that compassion is a community-wide value. She worked with the Bradford Area Chamber of Commerce, which helped secure donations.
As the chair of the Division of Management and Education at Pitt-Bradford, Matz next turned to the university’s education faculty, which jumped on board with its students to design lessons to be taught about compassion.
The lessons for children at both the elementary and middle school levels included stories based on Aesop’s Fables. The younger children heard the story of The Lion and the Mouse, which was acted out by education students in Dr. Donna Dombek’s capstone course. The story is about a mouse who, when caught by a lion, begs to be let go, promising to help the lion one day. The lion scoffs, but takes pity on him and lets him go. When the lion is caught in a trap made of ropes, the mouse fulfills his promise by chewing through the ropes to free him.Middle school students heard the story of a runaway slave who takes pity on a wounded lion and removes a thorn from its pad. Later the runaway slave and the lion met again in the Roman Coliseum, where the lion recognized the slave and did not harm him.
The education students then led the middle schoolers in a discussion of compassion and empathy and urged them to identify a time when someone was kind to them or when they were kind to another person.
In Janelle Turk’s art class last month at Fretz Middle School, the students tried to relate these stories on the tiles. It was difficult.
“It was hard to think of something to paint because there are so many things that go into compassion, like caring and friendship,” said seventh-grader Jack Pecora as he sketched out a peace sign on scratch paper.
While some students tried to depict specific incidents of someone helping a child change a bicycle tire or a student helping another pick up dropped books, many reached for colorful iconography, depicting hearts of all kinds, peace symbols and stick figures holding hands.
The bright paint pens on the tiles lend a joyful quality to the paintings.
Seventh-grade student Molly Frederick knew exactly what her hands holding a heart were about. She painted them, she said, to remember a friend who had died of leukemia, pointing to the brightly colored rubber bracelets with “Livestrong” and other uplifting slogans imprinted on them lining her own arms and the arms in the painting.
Although some students struggled with how to depict their ideas about compassion, it was clear that the project had gotten them thinking about the subject, Turk said. “They were also excited because they got to interact with students from the university and because their tiles will be on display downtown.”
Various offices and student groups on campus pitched in with designing and constructing the panels that will hold the tiles on display, and Nancy Kloss, the administrative assistant for Matz’s division, has made it her personal mission to be able to find each tile easily in a listing available at the display site.
Members of the Kiwanis Club of Bradford recruited by the Rev. Stacey Fussell, pastor of the Church of the Ascension, will act as docents during the exhibit and help people find their student’s tile.
“We’ve gotten a really good response from the community,” Matz said. When the display comes down, students will be able to reclaim their tiles, or businesses can continue to display them as a reminder to be more compassionate.
Pictured, art teacher Janelle Turk with seventh-grade student Jack Pecora of Bradford; and Morgan Whitlow working on her tile.
The news leader of the Twin Tiers ...since 1947
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