Arts and Technology Are Combined in Yonkers School
This past semester, teaching artist Dene Ross combined history, the arts and technology in a way that engaged and encouraged students at Riverside High School in Yonkers. During her arts residency, she worked with students in Laughton Huggins’s technology class to bridge the gap between digital and handmade practices. Her project introduced students to the history of portrait photography and papermaking. Hands-on activities followed, incorporating skills learned earlier in the semester – creating their own handmade paper and taking self-portraits in a makeshift photo studio in the classroom. On their computers, they infused their own personalities into their portraits by using Adobe Photoshop to add custom backgrounds, and designed borders for their mats. The designs were laser-cut onto the mat; the photos printed onto the handmade paper.
The project, which was supported by one of ArtsWestchester’s Arts Alive grants, synced with the class’s existing curriculum. Huggins explained: “The students walked away [after the project] with a lot of pride because it’s something they physically created, and they were able to use their new computer skills.”
Ross reflected on that sense of pride as well. “One of the students was dejected one day and deleted his project photos,” she recalled. Ross encouraged him to take new photos that highlighted his personality. “At the end of the class, he came up to me, proud of his new work, and said ‘thank you so much for encouraging me.’ To me, that shows just how much the students really got out of the project.”
Through Ross’s residency, students were able to apply new knowledge of photography and papermaking to the technology tools they learned in class, and ultimately see all of the pieces come together in a creative personalized project of which they were proud.
A version of this article first appeared in the June issue of ArtsNews, ArtsWestchester’s monthly publication. ArtsNews is distributed throughout Westchester County. A digital copy is also available at artsw.org/artsnews.
