Visual Arts Class Goes with the Flow to Finish Glass Mosaic

February 12, 2021

Academics

GNS

Every year, Ms. Gina Sicotte assigns a project in February to showcase caring, kindness and appreciation with either her Grade 9 or 10 classes. During the 2019/2020 school year, it was with the IB Visual Arts 10 students, and they came up with the idea of making a glass mosaic as a way to give back to GNS.

“It was a type of legacy piece that we could give to GNS and leave here as a gift of appreciation,” said Ms. Sicotte.

The project started in February 2020, where students thought up ideas for collective and collaborative pieces that they wanted to make. Along with a design idea, the students were tasked with coming up with a conceptual idea for the piece.

“What does it mean? What is it about? And thinking about the values of GNS, not necessarily our mission statement, but what they value about being here in school,” said Ms. Sicotte.

As a class, the top three choices were voted on by students and then the teachers/administrators of GNS. Connor Roberts’ ’22 design of “Go With the Flow” was the one chosen. Students learned the techniques of glass cutting, getting set up with wooden circles and gluing glass pieces on before spring break.

“I thought it would be a good design idea to talk about the narrative of how our school goes, and how with IB we generally have to go with the flow,” explained Connor. “Especially the idea of going with the flow worked well when we went into lockdown. It worked out beautifully in the end.”

When the school was closed due to COVID-19 and classes moved online, the process for the completion of the glass mosaic had to be modified. Students arranged to pick up the materials from the school to finish their projects and were able to work on them at home. Connor’s idea was altered slightly to represent how the students moved to learning from home. It is now titled “GO! With the Flow.”

“The one tricky part was our international students who went home,” said Ms. Sicotte. “There were five international students, so others volunteered to finish their pieces. It worked out well because when they joined the class they could see the other student working on their mosaic.”

When the individual project was completed, students brought back the design pieces at the end of June. The final stages were finished this school year with Taylor Leong ’21 and Hannah Sawchuk ’22 helping with grouting, and Art Club members Giulia Giommi ’21 and Katrina Wei ’21 helping with the layout design, background painting and mounting of the pieces.

Be sure to check out the mosaic in the Gudewill foyer!