Sag Harbor Elementary School & Sag Harbor Learning Center

Sag Harbor Elementary School’s second graders, led by art teacher Lisa Miller, recently took a field trip to the Arts Center at Duck Creek in East Hampton.

The visit was inspired by Sag Harbor parent and artist Fitzhugh Karol, whose outdoor exhibition “On the Grounds” is currently on view at the Arts Center. The range of interpretation for this exhibition created an excellent opportunity for the students to reexamine how simple forms can have different meanings for different viewers.

“These sculptures’ appearances shift as viewers walk around them, and each new angle provides a new silhouette to take meaning from,” explained Karol. “Whether someone takes away a sense of nostalgia, history, play, or just the joy of form and color, all of those readings are welcome.”

Upon welcoming the students, Karol led a hands-on art workshop, introducing them to his large-scale sculptures with a look into his creative process.

“Creating shapes out of paper is a simple exercise, but it’s the beginning of the long process of creating these large-scale pieces,” he said. “I wanted the students to understand that a big job like creating these sculptures can be broken down into steps they’re capable of achieving and plant the seed that they can make art of any size too.”

Karol said he was impressed by the students’ creativity: “Some created shapes based on things they saw in their environment or the pieces at Duck Creek, while others created shapes completely from their mind’s eye.”

For the Sag Harbor Elementary students, the trip gave them an opportunity to see how art can exist beyond the classroom and traditional gallery spaces, and to learn directly from a working artist within their own community.