Ben Schwind sings with students in Brooke Carton’s fifth-grade class during his “Common Chords” fine arts presentation Sept. 29 at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic School in Davenport.
By Anne Marie Amacher
The Catholic Messenger
DAVENPORT –— Twenty-two presenters from throughout the Quad-City community shared their talents with students at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic School Sept. 29.
“We had a fine arts day to expose our students to different types of artists and careers in the arts that we can’t normally expose them to,” Principal Julie Delaney said. “Everyone has different God-given gifts and we want to help our students explore the gifts that they might not even be aware that they have. Exposing them to possibilities will hopefully inspire them to explore the fine arts.”
In the past 20 years, the school hosted a fine arts day only twice. “Our plan is to alternate fine arts day with multicultural day going forward,” Delaney said. She found presenters for the fine arts day by posting an announcement in the parish bulletin and through the school newsletter.
Several presenters do not have children or grandchildren at St. Paul but saw the announcement in the bulletin, including Tony Schiltz, who gave a presentation on watercolor painting. He put up several of his paintings in the classroom he used for the day. Some paintings were in notebooks, others in picture frames.
Schiltz told the students that he keeps a watercolor journal and paints with him most of the time in case he feels inspiration when he is out. He also belongs to a painting group. As he showed his paintings, he shared the stories that inspired them. Sometimes he added to a picture later to give it more depth or adjusted for colors or lack of colors.
Students created their own paintings. “I enjoyed the day and I hope the students did, too,” Schiltz said. “I know some of them were very proud of their artwork.” He said he would consider participating in this event again, if given the opportunity.
Other fine arts presentations included dance, Junior Theater, ukulele, clay tiles, rubber stamp design, poetry, puppetry and storytelling. The day concluded with activities such as juggling, and the finale consisted of juggling with fire by the presenters, Delaney said.
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