500 pieces of art.

500 themed visual artworks ranging from sculptures to mixed media video projects from District 65 and 202 students are going to be featured at this year’s D65/202 Visual Arts Open House and Student Exhibit on Nov. 15 at 6 p.m. at the ETHS auditorium gallery.

District 65 and 202 are coming together for the annual visual art open house. Students ranging from kindergarten through grade 12 can have art pieces selected and displayed in the exhibit. This student art exhibit is free and open to the general public.

 “It’s not just the exhibition, it’s also an open house, and this year we’re particularly offering art activities in every single room,”  says art teacher Amy Moore.

“For example in video I’m going to have a live green screen that kids can record themselves flying and doing different things,” says Moore. “Each art teacher is going to have a different activity so all the kids that come to the exhibition will also be able to visit and tour the ETHS art department and participate in hands on activities in each room.”

Every year, a written piece is chosen as the inspiration for the works of art. Past themes include “The Voice” by Shel Silverstein, “Maggie and Milly and Molly and May” by E.E. Cummings, and work from Pablo Neruda. This year, the theme is a poem called “Cloud” by Sandra Cisneros.

 “Every other year the high school chooses the poem or the elementary schools chooses the poem,” Moore says. “So what I did is I collected a bunch of poems that either teachers had nominated or that I looked for and researched and the teachers decided on the poem, this one was unanimous.”

Not only will visual art be featured at ETHS, but tours of the school will be given to people who wish to see the art classrooms and watch demonstrations by students.

In the past, 300 works of art have been displayed, but this year there are 500 pieces being included in the exhibit.

Moore notes that every teacher selects the art that gets put on display differently, and that the Intro to Drawing and Painting teachers may do it with their whole class. Moore is personally entering work from one of her smaller classes because each teacher can only submit ten pieces.

ETHS looks forward to its continued success of the open house.