(l-r) Stoan Brubaker, Isabella Sweeney, Kinzie Hicks, and Abi Kauffman select objects for their pop can sculptures. “Unlock your imagination,” artist Anthony Radford told Carroll Elementary second graders last Wednesday.

He offered the encouragement as he held up a pop can and prepared students for a found object sculpture project.

Radford, who is a mixed media and found object sculptor, brought many small items of various colors, shapes, and textures to help students with their sculptures. Children chose the objects they wanted to attach to their pop cans to create the sculpture they saw in their imagination. Some of the objects available were popsicle sticks, bottle caps, pop can tabs, buttons, beads, raw pasta, flat marbles, and film reels.

The students brought their pop cans and pieces to Radford, a teacher, or other adult helper to have them put together with a hot glue gun. Students pointed out what they wanted where.

Second grader Riley Henderson blows on the hot glue that artist Anthony Radford applied to Riley’s pop can cannon. They made cannons, race cars, airplanes, robots, pop can people, and abstract sculptures (cans covered with decorative objects). And then they played with them. The creations were theirs to keep.

First and second graders all took part in the pop can workshop.

It was one of several workshops planned this year at CES as part of the Artist-In-Residence (AIR) program sponsored by Flora Psi Iota Xi.

Melissa Keown, a member of the Psi Ote AIR committee, said this year’s program is through Young Audiences of Indiana. The organization has professional artists who lead workshops in a variety of media. The art education projects go along with Indiana state standards in multiple subject areas.

Keown said workshops are planned for grades kindergarten through fourth grade. First and second graders have completed their session (pop cans), and kindergartners have had a workshop on making paper mosaics.

Stoan Brubaker proudly shows his animated airplane Keown said other programs planned tentatively are a banner-making workshop for third and fourth graders, and clay and dance/drum workshops for kindergartners. She said the workshops are tentative because the committee has not had final confirmation that the artists are available in the school’s time frame. She said the remaining projects will probably be scheduled next semester.

As part of the AIR program, Psi Iota Xi will also sponsor an afterschool, all-grade-level program called “People, Paint, and Percussion: A Performance,” and will sponsor a trip by sixth graders to see “The Nutcracker.” Past excursions for fifth and sixth graders, sponsored by AIR, have included visits to the Eitlejorg Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Children’s Museum (Norman Rockwell exhibit). AIR has also given grants to the elementary art and music programs for the purchase of supplies, and has sponsored art programs at the Flora Library.

This is Psi Otes’ 11th year to sponsor AIR at Carroll Elementary. The sorority has spent a total of more than $60,000 on the program over the last 10 years, according to Psi Ote treasurer Miriam Robeson.

Robeson explained that sorority money for AIR has been supplemented from time to time by contributions from local organizations, grants, and from a Carroll County Community Foundation endowment, but this year AIR is solely supported by the Psi Iota Xi budget, resulting in less money for the program.

The purpose of AIR, according to Keown and Robeson, is to supplement art education at Carroll Elementary.

Wyndham Traxler- Carter is the art teacher for the whole school corporation. She said at the elementary school, her schedule allows for one 50-minute class per week for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, one 30-minute class per week for third graders, one 30-minute class every other week for first and second graders, and no classes for kindergartners. She said some teachers, at their own discretion, lead art projects in their classrooms.

“The state-recommended minutes for art are 60 minutes per week for grades one through three and 90 minutes per week for grades four through six,” Traxler- Carter said.