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Logan student artwork showcased on busses, at Summerfest

Sara Patch stood outside of the folding doors of a bus parked in the parking lot next to the Logan Tabernacle. The recent high school graduate watched as the public admired her original work.

In what began as a sketch to match the theme bringing communities together, is now a watercolor work wrapped on the side of the seven art in transit busses.

“I used both male and female just to show that anyone can ride the bus,” Patch said. “It’s all about who’s in your community and things like that and the birds kind of make it seem like we’re taking flight. So that’s a part of our community as well. That’s something that’s very inspirational. I did a lot of watercolor just because I love the colors and I love the beautiful rainbows and things like that.”

Michael Bingham was one of the first to step inside the public bus featuring the art of elementary and high schools students.

“It’s like a little gallery in here, it’s really cool,” Bingham said. “People need to come by and see the little mini gallery of all the ideas. There’s some really good imagination.”

Bingham is an artist and teaches art at Mountain Crest High School in Hyrum.

“I’m not necessarily trying to make a lot of artists,” Bingham said. “But whether that student wants to be a doctor or a bus driver or whatever they want to be, they’re going to need they’re imagination and the art classes in high school may be the only place that they really get some strengthening in that area.”

Aurora Villa directed guests around the busses and is the arts coordinator for Cache County School District. She spent June 14 and 15 aboard a bus showcasing student work at Logan’s downtown summer fest art fair.

Villa’s job was to explain how paintings, prints and collages from second grade students and Smithfield’s Summit Elementary were reproduced onto vinyl placards that were mounted inside the bus.

“The more we see art, the more we experience it, the more we respond to it, the more excited we are about supporting it and keeping it in our community and in our schools, which is of course one of my main focuses,” Villa said. “I think really, that’s the main goal. But I think also to recognize students like Sara Patch that make amazing work that are possibly going into a career in it or maybe just enjoy doing it in the classroom as part of an arts integrated lesson. And let’s get it out there and show people what they’re doing.”

It was a second grade teacher, Michelle Daines, who approached the Crayola Company about providing the materials for her students to do these art projects. And from there she said the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, summer fest and other businesses hopped on board to make this art project happen.

“Another grant helped get our teacher, Kristi Grussendorf, come every week for 10 weeks,” Daines said. “She taught all three of our second grade classes. They did the butterflies, they did flowers with watercolors and they did texture collages with the fish. They absolutely loved it. Every Monday they’d come and say, ‘is it art today?’ Art day was Wednesday. ‘No it’ll be on Wednesday’, they absolutely couldn’t wait.”

The Cache Valley Art in Transit Project will continue to showcase artwork created by students from Providence Elementary who participated in the pilot project last year. Work from this latest unveiling will hit the road this week.

At 14-years-old, Kerry began working as a reporter for KVEL “The Hot One” in Vernal, Utah. Her radio news interests led her to Logan where she became news director for KBLQ while attending Utah State University. She graduated USU with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and spent the next few years working for Utah Public Radio. Leaving UPR in 1993 she spent the next 14 years as the full time mother of four boys before returning in 2007. Kerry and her husband Boyd reside in Nibley.