Stewart Gallery show featuring kids’ art takes visitors to SpookyTown

Halloween may have passed, but the spooky season is still going strong at the Grinnell Area Arts Council’s “SpookyTown’s Ragtag Army of Creatives” exhibit. Open through Nov. 8 at the Stewart Gallery, the exhibit consists of artworks made by 30 local children ranging in age from kindergarten through sixth grade at the Studio 6 after-school arts program. 

Visitors to the gallery can walk through a forest of handmade trees populated by monsters, robots, and other creatures, each made by a child over the course of a month out of recycled materials. Lining the walls in all directions are dozens of life-sized paper skeletons, each one also made by a child. Skeletons and googly-eyed monsters can be seen in various poses, suspended in the air or sitting at the bases of trees. No two are alike.

“Kids are natural artists,” said Alesia Lacina, 70, who has taught the Studio 6 program since 2006. “I think they don’t need much direction. They are creative on their own, and I don’t want to do anything that stifles that, of course, so you just give them a big box of recycled materials and say, ‘go wild’.”

Eleanor Tigges, 9, was inspired by “The Wild Robot.” (Brisa Zielina)

Mary Laver, 9, built a robot monster out of boxes. She said she wanted to incorporate movement into the design, but without wheels available, she had to improvise. The robot’s head can be moved and posed by sliding it along tracks she cut into the top of the lower box. She said she loves making art because it allows her to express her ideas.

“I can get my personality and put it on paper,” she said. 

Eleanor Tigges, 9, also built a robot, one that she said blurs the line between machine and living thing. The design was inspired by the movie The Wild Robot, she said.

The milk-jug-princess-soldier made by Nora Hammond, 8. (Brisa Zielina)

“It’s a robot that was stuck in the wild and it’s gotten really attached to the wilderness,” she said, pointing out bits of moss and feathers glued to the exterior. The robot-creature has no visible legs, which she said was done to give it a worm-like appearance. 

In contrast to the surrounding robots and fantasy monsters, Nora Hammond, 8, built a figure that appears distinctly human, complete with a milk jug cleverly repurposed as a head.

“I kind of made it a mix of a princess and a soldier,” she said.

The paper skeleton made by Gracie Rodriguez, 8, with its necklace. (Brisa Zielina)

Flowers and jewels on the face are juxtaposed with armored shoulder pads made from plastic lids.  “I don’t really know what made me want to do this. I just started creating, and then I had an idea what I was gonna do,” she said, adding that it took her two days to create the piece — one day to build, and one day to paint.

Gracie Rodriguez, 8, took a creative approach to her paper skeleton, adding a blue necklace and arranging the bones in a dynamic pose.

“I wanted it to look like it was running or flying in the air,” she said.

Nat Hanson, 5, built an unstoppable, creepy, weird monster. (Brisa Zielina)

Nat Hanson, 5, built a powerful monster with a pipe cleaner mouth and multiple hearts and eyes all over its body. 

“It’s unstoppable,” he said. “Basically, the hearts are on the shield, and there’s eyeballs everywhere. It looks creepy. It looks very, very, very, very weird.”

He said the monster is his second favorite piece of art he has ever made, after a clay house he’d recently built.

The gallery is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. The Studio 6 after-school arts program runs weekly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for K-6 students.