Over 400 people had walked through the Triton Museum of Art’s doors within the first 45 minutes of the museum opening on March 1. While incredible exhibits are currently on display, these visitors were there for one special show – the museum’s annual Santa Clara Unified School District Student Exhibition.
From elementary to high school, each educational institution in Santa Clara Unified submitted pieces for display. The result was a wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor extravaganza showcasing the talent within the district.
“It’s so awesome to see this many people come through the galleries,” said the museum’s Curator of Education Maria Ester Fernandez, who expected over 1,000 visitors.
“This is so great. It’s so great to see all the families here … a lot of these folks are coming in for the first time so it’s great for them to know they have this in the community and they can come out and it’s free, of course.”
There were plenty of items to please each type of art fan or critic. Watercolor, ceramic, computer-aided pieces, paintings, and pencil drawings were among the hundreds of artworks selected by Santa Clara Unified teachers for submission. It was a true festival of the arts.
“This is a celebration of the children,” said Fernandez, “and the school district and their commitment to the arts and our commitment to support them in that endeavor … I’m impressed. I’m really, really happy with what our teachers are doing and hopefully we can add to that.”
Whole Foods, Blossom Hill provided 720 cookies as refreshments and the students were encouraged to participate in Family Art Day activities, which all tied into the museum’s current exhibits.
“We have four art projects,” said Fernandez. “We have a paper sculpture and it’s inspired by the sculptures that are in the sculpture garden. Then we have an activity inspired by David Simpson, who is part of the permanent collection. It’s a new acquisition that’s in the [Contemporary Heritage: Selections from the Permanent Collection] show. Then we have landscape that is inspired by Katherine Meyer. It’s carbon rubbing and they have cut pieces that are organically shaped that they are placing to create a landscape. Then they’ll do the rubbing and go back in with colored pencil to do the detail. Then the last one is these paper borders that were kind of inspired by the shrines in the Beverly Rayner exhibition. We try to pick different mediums so that the children are doing different things at each one.”
The Santa Clara Unified School District Exhibition runs through March 30, but the show is only open during certain times because of the Triton’s art classes. The exhibit can be seen on Fridays after 1 p.m., Saturdays after 2 p.m. and during the museum’s regular noon to 4 p.m. hours on Sunday. The Triton Museum of Art is at 1505 Warburton Ave. in Santa Clara.