Jacob Lawrence’s Memorabilia, the subject of this year’s Take One Picture project.
Inspired by the national Take One Picture program in the UK, our Take One Picture project at Poughkeepsie Day School has become an essential annual event for the entire student population. Every year, it starts with the selection of one painting from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. Then, with a new twist in recent years, students in each class come up with their own interpretations and reactions to the painting which they express through a unique individual or group project. Finally, in May, the whole school congregates in Taylor Hall at the Loeb to share their work on stage. This year’s results—inspired by a painting titled Memorabilia by Jacob Lawrence—were thoroughly impressive and thought provoking, demonstrating a wide variety of clever interpretations and reactions throughout the student body.
The first group to take the stage in Taylor Hall (after an introduction from Spiro) were the PreK and Kindergarten, sporting hand-made puppets of different characters they observed in Lawrence’s painting. The students’ interpretation of Memorabilia was that it was a wedding between figurines in a memorabilia shop who had come to life. For their class presentation, the PreK and K recorded a short video where each student acted out a different “figurine” from the painting coming to life and going to a wedding. Everyone made sure to hold up their puppet so that anyone watching knew what character they were. The class’s video included an informational monologue from their teacher, Andrea Istel, about the Hunter family of Johns Island, South Carolina, who they learned about in music class with Ken McGloin. The Hunters were important figures on Johns Island who, through their music and storytelling, almost singlehandedly helped to preserve the influence of African culture in the area. The video ended with the PreK and Kindergarteners, acting as figurines, dancing to the Hunter family’s music before going back to their original spots in the memorabilia shop.
The PreK and Kindergarten show off their figurine puppets before presenting their video at the Loeb.
PreK/K video: the figurines have a blast at the wedding in the memorabilia shop.
Next up were Grades 1 and 2, who decided to apply their recent focus on poetry to the Take One Picture project. Each student wrote their own poem in response to the painting, utilizing styles such as diamanté, haiku, and shape poems. Much of the poetry was influenced by the imagery of musical instruments and horses present in the painting.
“DRUM” by Daxton (Grade 1)
“Memorabilia” by Annabelle (Grade 2)
“Jazz” by Indigo (Grade 2).
Grades 3 and 4 connected Memorabilia to their ongoing study of migration by researching and presenting facts about the Great Migration. Taking place between 1910-1970, the Great Migration saw the movement of more than 6,000,000 African Americans from the rural American South to northern, western, and midwestern states in order to escape racial discrimination and oppression, as well as to seize new economic opportunities. Through their research, students learned that Jacob Lawrence himself created a series of 60 small, captioned artworks entitled The Migration Series, which powerfully capture the timeline and essence of the Great Migration through only the use of paint and minimal text. Each student ended up choosing their favorite panel from the series and using it as inspiration for a painting of their own.
Greta (Grade 3) presents her Migration Series inspired painting at the Loeb alongside her classmates. The piece is meant to represent her family’s move from New York City to upstate New York.
Alantha (Grade 3)’s painting inspired by Panel 7 of The Migration Series.
Grades 5 and 6 presented a collection of their own extensive historical research done in direct response to images shown in Memorabilia. Students shared information on subjects such as the Harlem Renaissance; jazz; the history of African-American education; the participation of African-Americans in the Civil War; the religious demographics of African-Americans; and even the history of African-American jockeys in horse racing. All research was backed up by a lengthy bibliography that the class made sure to put on display after their presentations were over.
Some 5th and 6th grade students researched the history of jazz in response to the image of men playing instruments in Memorabilia.
Some chose to research important African-American figures in the American Revolution in response to the image of black soldiers holding weapons on a battlefield.
Some even researched the history of African-American jockeys in horse racing in response to the image of a black jockey riding a horse.
However, the 5-6 weren’t done yet. They decided to take the project one step further and create a group “memorabilia shelf” that contains objects and artistic creations which represent their favorite memories from the 2023-2024 school year. A Christmas tree made out of cheese, a cup full of compost, a drawing of a PDS basketball jersey, and a diagram of the water cycle are just a few of shelf’s may features. Come check it out by the nurse’s office some time!
The 5th and 6th grade “memorabilia shelf” in all of its glory.
Lastly for Take One Picture, our high schoolers worked on individual writing projects that reflected on literal memorabilia and the different ways in which it permeates their personal lives and interests. Faithfully presented by Humanities and Drama teacher Stephen Haff, each piece of writing offered an intimate look into some of the thoughts and past experiences of our oldest students.
Stephen Haff reads the PDS high school’s reflections on memorabilia at the Loeb.
And, with that, another year of Take One Picture came to an end. It was incredible to see all the ideas and projects students across every division came up with, and, as always, some of the different ways in which the painting was interpreted. Everybody worked extremely well together and fearlessly owned the stage when it was their turn to present. We are so unbelievably proud, and can hardly wait until next year’s Take One Picture for a new patch of wonderful ideas to bloom