St Joseph’s Secondary School, Rochfortbridge was a sea of colour on Thursday evening as the school hosted an evening dedicated to displaying the children’s artistic offerings throughout the year. Art teacher at the school and event organiser, Jennifer Gallagher told Topic: “The work that’s up here is last year’s academic work in art, music, metalwork and home economics. We have work from every year on display here tonight.”
Mrs. Gallagher said that the aim of the art-orientated evening was to bring teachers and parents together and give the students a chance to show off their creativity and skills. “Basically how it started was the children and teachers in this school do a fabulous job with the artwork, music, woodwork, metalwork and home economics and we felt that it wasn’t really beeing seen. I thought it might be a nice idea to do an art show and instead of it just being art, it could be art, music and home economics – all the practical work exhibited.”
Saoirse Carey, who took part in the “Junk Couture” fashion show, wore a flamboyant dress made from teddy bears which she made herself. “The Junk Couture has to be made from recycled materials and I figured teddies would be the easiest thing to sew together. Aside from that it’s also about animal cruelty and how common it is.”
Mrs. Gallagher told Topic that the event was a way of helping students reach their full potential and get excited about the non-academic work they do at school. “Sometimes we get some students who are great at the practical work but maybe not so much at the academic work. They might play about in class sometimes or they mightn’t feel fulfilled academically and this is a way of validating their abilities.”
Parent, Declan Molyneux told Topic that he also felt that art was an important part of the school curriculum. “Education is fantastic and character building and art is all about character. I think it’s very important to find the balance. Academia is obviously very important but how you express yourself is equally important, particularly with teenagers.”
