By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Goffstown News/Bruce Preston Mountain View Middle School fifth-grader Brandon Turner begins weaving on the loom during an artist-in-residence program on Thursday, April 6. Marcy Schepker, an artist and educator taught the students how to weave tapestries in a Colonial American style.

The loom has been threaded, or “warped,” and the fifth-graders at Mountain View Middle School are ready to take a trip back in time.

Artist-in-residence Marcy Schepker stands before the class and shows them how to pull wool fiber through the loom. This exacting effort will result in a woven tapestry to tell a story about life in rural New England. It’s a quaint practice from the pages of history; something done when living people could tell stories about the landing at Plymouth Rock.

And that’s the point: For the next couple of weeks Schepker, Mountain View’s visiting artist-in-residence from Harrisville, will teach the students how to create the same type of woven tapestry that was made by their ancestors in colonial New England.

“The fifth-graders are studying colonial times in areas all across their curriculum,” said Kathy St. Jean, a Mountain View art teacher and coordinator of the Artist in Residence program. “This gives them real hands-on experience with the subject.”

And “hands-on” is the only way to describe this project. The students start with raw wool, which they then comb, or “card,” using machines like the ones used in Colonial times.

Every step forward requires students to use their own creativity and manual dexterity to create a project that would do their ancestors in the rebel colonies proud.

And while the project does boost students’ motor skills and ability to handle materials, the primary focus is creativity. Sometimes, Schepker said, students’ ingenuity can take impressive turns.

“Already, I find myself learning from the children about how to think creatively,” said Schepker, who arrived at the school on Wednesday, April 5.

In this project, four teams of 50 students will create tapestry scenes representing each of the four seasons. Schepker said she has brainstormed with the students to determine which scenes they’d like their tapestry to portray. As an example of her young charges’ creativity, she said one group wanted to depict a barn dance at dusk, complete with dancing characters made of pipe cleaners and wool, while another group wanted to do a scene depicting the afternoon changing into night.

“This is a great way for the students to learn about how things were done in Colonial times,” said St. Jean, noting that the project requires the same type of teamwork and collaboration used by this country’s early settlers.

Working with a loom also gives students an appreciation for the craftsmanship required by an art project, Schepker said. In preparing for this project, students sanded, measured and nailed a wooden loom from a frame made by Schepker’s husband, Hans.

The artist in residence program always aims to spark students’ creativity while giving them insight into various art forms, cultures and historical periods, St. Jean said. Past artist-in-residence programs have focused on stained glass windows, African drumming and dancing, sculptures and paintings of American heroes. The fruits of these programs can be seen throughout the hallways and corridors of Mountain View Middle School.

“This is an environment that genuinely supports the arts; you can see that just by looking around the school,” St. Jean said.

The Artist in Residence program is generally supported by the New Hampshire Council on the Arts, the Mountain View Partnership parent-teacher group and the school district, St. Jean said.

“This really gives a teacher an opportunity to see a student in a new light,” said St. Jean of the program.

“A student who may not be strong in all academic areas might have a real talent with hands-on projects like these,” she said.

Parents and members of the community were able to see the end result of the Artist in Residence program on Tuesday, April 18, at 6:30 p.m., when students unveiled all four of the tapestries they made for this project.

And, in the Yankee spirit of never letting anything go to waste, Mountain View students will present students at the kindergarten opening in October with rag rugs made from materials left over from this project.