Breckenridge Texan

Exhibit at Breckenridge Fine Arts Center features work of local junior high students

Exhibit at Breckenridge Fine Arts Center features work of local junior high students
June 02
18:16 2023

By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

A variety of artwork by Breckenridge Junior High School students will be on display at the Breckenridge Fine Arts Center through the end of June.

The exhibit fills up the main gallery at the BFAC, with one collaborative mural taking up the south wall of the gallery.

Former BJSH art teacher Kyrah Bailey drew the main image for the mural and based it on a 1990s t-shirt that featured the phrase “Ski Breckenridge.” The original t-shirt was a take-off on “Ski Breckenridge (Colorado)” t-shirts, replacing snow skiing images with water skiing. Bailey’s image includes water skiers, the mile-long bridge over Hubbard Creek Lake and an outline of Texas with Breckenridge represented by a star.

Bailey, who is leaving her teaching/coaching position at BJHS to be the assistant volleyball coach at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, her alma mater, said the collaborative mural took about three and a half weeks for the students to paint and then it had to be pieced together. The beginner art students used watercolors for their images, while the more advanced students used acrylics.

The exhibit also includes collaborative murals of artists Bob Ross and Andy Warhol. To create the murals, Bailey creates an image and then, using a grid, divides it into multiple blocks. Each student is given one piece to recreate in a larger format, painting their section of the work on their own. Then, the individual blocks are put together to form the whole image. Last year’s collaborative mural featured a picture of the Breckenridge community that Bailey drew.

Other artwork in the exhibit includes self-portraits in graphite, abstract pieces, op art — aka optical illusion art — and more.

One group of pictures was drawn on recycled cardboard boxes that were flattened out. The boxes included product packaging, fast food drink holders, tissue boxes, etc. The students were required to use chalk pastel pencils to draw images that included any type of wildlife animal, some type of landscape, and a silhouette of a person. “The composition of it is so random that it kind of it forces them to use a more creative outlook on what their final product is going to look like,” Bailey said. “It can take an artistic eye to layout your design in a really odd shape, because some of them are really weird. I really just wanted to test their creative eye because not having just a regular square canvas can be challenging sometimes. But I think they all did a really good job with it. I asked them to use a different perspective for this project.”

The exhibit will be on display through June 30 at the Breckenridge Fine Arts Center, located at 207 N. Breckenridge Ave. The fine arts center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. The permanent exhibits at the BFAC include “All That Glitters: Festival Dresses of Texas,” the Kathryn Leach Doll Collection featuring more than 700 dolls, and a bronze sculpture collection donated by the estate of the late Lester and Virginia Clark. For more information about the fine arts center, call 254-559-6602.

Henson McClymond discusses the some of the art in the Breckenridge Junior High School exhibit at the fine arts center with her grandmother, Bonnie McClymond. They were there with Henson’s mom, Courtney McClymond, and sister Milly Cate. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

One of the collaborative murals in the exhibit is a recreation of a self-portrait of artist Bob Ross. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Several self-portraits created in graphite are featured in the exhibit. The students were encouraged to add deeper values (tones) to their pictures, art teacher Kyrah Bailey said. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Cutline, top photo: Breckenridge Junior High School student Gentry Bounds looks at the “Ski Breckenridge” collaborative mural with Hannah Bounds and Cammie Norred. The exhibit of BJHS artwork will be on display through June 30. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

 

 

 

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