Patagonia Elementary’s first grade class proudly participated in this year’s Global Peace Project with the Patagonia Creative Arts Association.
Kate Musick, the first grade teacher, said this project was perfect for her class since they are always working toward peace in the classroom.
The Global Art Project is an International Art Exchange for Peace, with a mission to joyously create a culture of peace through art.
Here’s how it works: Participants create a work of art in any medium, expressing their vision of global peace and goodwill. The art is displayed locally in each participant’s community. The Global Art Project then organizes an international exchange by matching participants.
Since 1994 there have been 115,000 participants on seven continents. Molly Phinny, a local artist, worked with the first graders to produce a work of art for the exchange.
The process started with a conversation about peace and what that meant to the children. The project was aptly titled “Let’s Be Friends,” when the students decided that we would have peace if we treated everyone like our friends. Brightly colored envelopes were decorated with handprints and self-portraits. Imagining what their friends might like, they then drew pictures, chose three interesting stamps, and wrote a short note to their far-away friends that they then put in the envelopes. Finally, they made a dove of peace fashioned after one of Picasso’s simple line drawings.
All of the pieces were then assembled into a hanging that was displayed in the boardroom at PES until it was exchanged with a group of elementary students in Cambodia at the end of April. It takes a project like this and the words of innocent children to remind all of us that creating a culture of peace is not that hard. All we need to do is to treat everyone like a friend. Peace.