Students weave social-distancing rule into art
GREENWICH — On a recent day just a few weeks into the school year, Whitby School eighthgraders and prekindergarten students gathered in the middle of the gym, where a 4-foot-by-6-foot loom was stationed.
From the group of students, two names were called at a time by Whitby’s Head of School John Creeden. In each pairing was an eighth-grader and a prekindergartner, who met near the center of the basketball court, grabbed opposite ends of an 8-foot ribbon and walked it to the loom.
The ribbons — which were lined with inspirational sayings chosen by each of the upperclassmen — were then secured on the frame. Ultimately, they would become the warp of the weave that would take shape that day in what has been an ongoing show of school unity during the coronavirus pandemic — a “weaving together” of two of the classes at the coeducational private school.
“We thought, let’s take this six feet of distance, which can be viewed as negative, and let’s look at it in a very positive light,” said Margaret Reilly, the school’s director of marketing and communications at Whitby, which offers Montessori and International Baccalaureate programs.
The project is meant as a physical representation of the #WhitbyToghether theme created this school year by Creeden, Reilly and other staff, including art teachers Amy Budzelek and Pamela Chapman. Budzelek and Chapman, in particular, felt the hashtag lent itself naturally to a weave, the warp and weft of which cross one another similarly in a grid-pattern.
The project also builds off a recent tradition at the school: At the end of the school year, eighth-graders and students coming out of Children’s House (preschool through kindergarten) usually participate in a joint graduation ceremony.
But with the COVID-19 pandemic upon the country, that ceremony was not possible at the end of last year and is up in the air for the coming spring. So administrators wondered whether there was a safe way to replicate the sentiment.
“Rather than holding hands, we can use this ribbon so they can walk side by side,” Reilly said.
Many of the adages
In the coming weeks and months, the loom will be wheeled around the school. Every student and staff member will add his or her own ribbon to the weave. At the culmination of the project, the textile will be hung from the rafters of the school’s Renaissance Hall, for all to see.
chosen by the eighth-graders for the project are pithy and inspirational.
“Anything is possible,” “Live free, unrestricted,” and “Create your own path,” are just a few. Others are more verbose. “Without determination, risk-taking and being open-minded, it will be hard for you to value everything you learn, your experiences and mistakes and how you grow as a person,” one says.
“The project got me thinking about how we’re connected and this kind of metaphor of us as a tapestry,” Budzelek said. “All these individual threads together, that are essential
that was an event that felt more normal. Being able to get together with their eighth-grade counterparts, it was a very special thing for kindergartners.”
In the coming weeks and months, the loom will be wheeled around the school. Every student and staff member will add his or her own ribbon to the weave. At the culmination of the project, the textile and interconnected. ... And will be hung from the it was about the eighthrafters of the school’s Regraders. ... We wanted to naissance Hall, for all to highlight them and see.their leadership. The project is the first
According to Chapman, in what Reilly, Budzelek who taught a weaving and Chapman said they class at the school last hope will be a series of year, both eighth-graders creative ideas to unite and the pre-K students students during the panhave bought into the projdemic. It will likely not be ect. The younger kids, in the only artistic maniparticular, were in awe of festation of the #Whitbytheir older classmates durTogether motto, they said. ing that first day of weav“The idea was how can ing and were especially we bring people together excited to receive shirts in a fun and creative way, from their peers that said in a time that we’re very “Class of 2029” on the separate but in need of back. connection,’ Budzelek said.
“The students are really excited to be here,” Chapman said. “And I think