SHELBURNE FALLS — Down the hall from Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School’s main office, tucked into a classroom divided by chalkboards and whiteboards, Cynthia Fisher was working on mosaics that will mark the entrance to Shelburne Falls — and she wasn’t alone.
Students at Buckland-Shelburne Elementary were helping Fisher create the mosaics, which will replace aged signs in Shelburne Falls. Fisher spent two days working with the youngsters, and while they didn’t finish the mosaic, the students laid the groundwork for signs that every driver will see on their way into the village.
“What happens with kids is that you get all kinds of things, which is really fun,” Fisher said, noting that she does have to do some work on the project independently to tackle the more difficult elements. “What happens with mosaics is that they get to a part where it’s really hard for kids to control stuff and fit stuff, and be able to judge if a piece will fit or won’t fit.”
The activity was presented as a fun exercise for children to take part in as the school year wrapped up, but intertwined with this was Fisher teaching the art of mosaic-making along with other areas of education. Students weren’t required to take part in these sessions, as it wasn’t part of the art class curriculum, but according to Fisher, those who did brought new ideas for patterns and illustrations that only exist in the mind of a child.
“It’s a lot of geometry, so lots of learning opportunities besides just being a fun art project,” she said. “I opened [the project] to grades three through six … and once you start a mosaic, it always seems like, ‘Oh, we are never going to finish,’ or it seems like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re going to be done in no time.’ Honestly, it goes back and forth between those two.”
Fisher said that after the first day of working on the mosaic with sixth graders, she was worried this was going to be a project that would be finished before all of the grades would be able to participate. However, once they moved into the more intricate aspects of mosaic-making, “it really slowed down.”
This isn’t the first time that Fisher has made mosaic signs for western Franklin County, as she did a similar project 16 years ago in an effort to depict the county towns in mosaic form. The mosaics that the students helped Fisher with at Buckland-Shelburne Elementary will replace two signs — one located at Kenburn Orchards and the other at the Clark’s Corvair Parts property.
“We met with [Caitlyn Slowinski of Kenburn Orchards] in March and just talked about the logistics of all this … and when I did the original Shelburne Falls mosaics project in 2010 … I worked with kids from all of the elementary schools in the district,” Fisher recalled. “That was a huge undertaking with tons of input. We also worked with the Senior Center. I kind of wanted to revisit that idea of a lot of the community taking part in it.”
When she asked students if they knew about the signs that they were replacing, Fisher said some did know that they were falling down. Others, though, seemed more excited to do art.
“I had to decide which part was the most logical for the kids to work on,” Fisher said. “With the lettering here, when you’re just doing a straight shot, it’s really easy, but when you get into the curves, it’s quite complicated.
“Mosaics are great because kids can do them,” she added. “The kids wore safety goggles and used the nippers to cut the tiles, and they loved using the nippers and wearing the safety goggles.”
Fisher will continue working on these mosaics at the Shelburne Falls Senior Center, with two days in July dedicated to wrapping up work on the signs: Friday, July 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday, July 11, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fisher may add extra work days in August if necessary.
To sign up for mosaic making at the Senior Center, visit forms.gle/Hxo2PriugdA3RgZi9.
