CT -St. Xavier students mix art and reading at academy

Welcome to the online edition of The Catholic Telegraph,
the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati
Serving 500,000 Catholics in the southwest Ohio counties of:
Adams, Auglaize, Brown, Butler, Champaign, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Darke, Greene, Hamilton, Highland, Logan, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Preble, Shelby and Warren.

Home

Welcome and
Mission Statement

How to Contact Us

Advertising in
The Catholic Telegraph

Subscribe to
The Catholic Telegraph

Back Issues

2008 Catholic Directory and
Buyer's Guide

Archdiocese of Cincinnati Home Page

St. Xavier students mix art and reading at academy

By Eileen Connelly, OSU

ST. MARGARET MARY DEANERY — Children’s books recently came to life in an art class at St. Xavier High School.

COURTESY PHOTO

Sean Keating, a junior at St. Xavier High School, works on his Reading Circle Chair, based on the Dr. Seuss classic Green Eggs and Ham.

Visual arts students in Mary Ann Meyer’s sculpture class have created a group of 13 chairs based on classic children’s books. The Reading Circle Chairs, as they have been dubbed, and the books that inspired them, will be donated to first graders at Winton Place Academy in an effort to inspire them to read more, Meyer said.

"I just thought it would be a neat project," she explained. "I’m impressed with what they (the St. Xavier students) did. I’m impressed they would get so into this project. It’s really a great way for art and service to mix."

Meyer developed the idea for the Reading Circle and ordered the chairs from an unfinished furniture web site. Students took turns reading stacks of children’s books before selecting one story on which to base their chairs. They then fabricated additional elements to affix to the original chair and painted each piece. The results range from a dragon with a spiny tail to the lower mandible of an alligator, and from classic Dr. Seuss serving up green eggs to fractured fairy tales of pigs and wolves.

"I’m ready to do it again," said Jacob Smith, sophomore, who built a chair based on There’s a Nightmare in My Closet. "It came out better than I thought it would. I like that a lot of people are actually going to use it. It would just sit in my room otherwise."

Other students and the stories the sculpted include the following: Eric Smith (Big Bug Surprise), Kevin Jackson (The True Story of the Three Pigs), John Pastura (The Paper Bag Princess), Kris Klein (Art Dog), Chris Olberding (Where the Wild Things Are), Mike Unkrich (Jungle Bullies), Michael Besl (Mind Your Manners), Marvin Saccucci (Flap Your Wings), Dan Thaler (The Shy Creatures), Robert Blum (The Kissing Hand), Sean Keating (Green Eggs and Ham) and Marco Venturato (Englebert Sneem).

"These chairs are outstanding," said Jesuit Father Walter Deye, president of St. Xavier. "What a great marriage of our school’s mission, our students’ talent, our teachers’ guidance with children who need special things in their lives."

The chairs remained on display at St. Xavier during second quarter exams before being delivered to Winton Place Academy on Jan. 22.

[Return to top of page ] [Home ]