Members of the Art Club, sponsored by art teacher David Mason, decided to take a new route for a gallery in the Mason Jar and produce a collage of students’ front-facing camera photos called “selfies”.
The Art Club encourages all students to send up to four high-quality selfies to [email protected], and hope to get as many pictures as possible. The pictures will be professionally mounted on the gallery walls after being printed to poster-size.
“We were worried at first because we thought students might not want to send pictures of themselves to be blown up to a 16×20 photo,” Mason said. “So far we’ve had 17 students enter selfies in one day.”
The club wants to receive a couple hundred pictures, the Art Club figured out how to get the most pictures submitted possible. Mrs. Retchless loaded an app onto all students’ iPads which provided them the information on how to submit selfies.
If the Art Club selects a student’s photos, they will pay a $5 fee for printing the picture to poster size.
“The hardest part was being able to notify all the students of the project,” Mason said. “But with the help of our iPad technician, Mrs. Retchless, we launched a selfie app to all of the students’ iPads.”
Mrs. Retchless launched the app through Air Watch, a mobile device management program that MISD utilizes. Mr. Mason sent her a flyer that he wanted to use for the art project, and she was able to create a “web app.”
“I think it’s great, I think it’s something that’s currently trendy in social media, and it takes an artistic turn,” Ms. Retchless said. “You can see peoples’ personality and their artistic views through their photos.”
The last day students can enter selfies is October 24, and the art club expects the whole project to be completed by early December.