City Springs Student Art Featured in Black History Month Exhibition at Creative Alliance

Playing the Saxophone
 By Kionna Allen

By Kasey Trudgeon, Art Teacher, City Springs Elementary/Middle School

Yesterday, twelve of our 7th and 8th grade Academy students from City Springs had their artwork entered into The Black History Month Art Exhibition presented by Johns Hopkins East Baltimore Community Affairs at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson. Their artwork will be on display from February 1st until February 8th. Their names are Kionna Allen, Dreyon Cooper, Dynasty Eggleston, Demetrius Ellis, Tyriq Elmore, Cameron Gilmore, Kaye Marie Lumayog, Dominic Rabey, Zion Rhodes, Dajana Spriggs, Anthony Webb, and Mackalya Williams.

Since the students were learning about WWI in their history and language arts classes, in art they were taught about the Harlem Renaissance, which stemmed from WWI. After learning about the Harlem Renaissance, the students studied the design principle of Movement. The students' artwork is an arrangement of twelve wire and plaster sculptures, made to look like Billie Holiday, her musicians, and the dancers at a nightclub. The way the students created their sculptures was deliberate; they wanted them to look like they were actually frozen in time: singing, playing music, and dancing during the Harlem Renaissance.

Playing the Saxophone by Kionna Allen

The following caption goes with the students' artwork:

Billie Holiday, although born in Philadelphia, spent many of her childhood years in Baltimore. It is said that she got a job running errands in a brothel so that she could listen to the jazz and blues that played in the parlor. After moving to New York, Holiday had a great influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style was unlike that of any other. One critic, John Bush, even wrote how Holiday “changed the art of American pop vocals forever.” She did so by making a great contribution to the “Harlem Renaissance,” a period in the 1920’s when achievements in art, music, and literature of African-Americans flourished. Without Holiday and her Baltimore roots, however, the Harlem Renaissance may not have been nearly as spectacular