Drawing a Proud Crowd at Bellmore Schools

The main entrance hallway at Winthrop Avenue School was transformed Monday night into an art gallery. 

The artists were none other than close to 100 of the 1,100 kindergartners to sixth-grade students in the Bellmore Elementary District’s three schools. Many of these budding artists were present at the gallery opening, ready and willing to discuss their art and their approach to it. 

“I like to draw a lot,” said fifth-grader Alexis Bonura, standing next to a portrait of a girl in a scarf she found in a magazine that she recreated in vibrant colors with acetate markers and foil. 

“I wanted to be challenged, so I did the hardest one from all the things lined up in pots in the classroom,” said third-grader Ethan Grimes of the flowers in a vase he drew. 

“The teacher gave us books with sea animals,” said second-grader Summer Hasseck. “So I picked a shark."

The extraordinarily creative and colorful creations on display ranged in style as well as medium. Their works represented surprising diversity, from pop art depictions to architectural-type renderings. The materials they used included everything from water color paints to ink imprinting to markers to color paper and foil.

The subjects were more disparate than the materials used, running the gamut from beetles and spiders to sharks, from a vampire to a fashion model, from an abstract, tropical-colored bottle to a realistic-looking box of Mallomars, from portraits to a street scenes.

This Bellmore Stars Art Gallery was the product of the district’s “community of learners,” according to Superintendent Dr. Joseph Famularo, who was on hand to admire the children’s works and greet their proud parents types of artwork in frames, as were other administrators, art teachers, even Board of Education President Janet Goller.    

Famularo pointed out that the gallery-quality frames were donated last year by James Perna, a former Winthrop Avenue School alumnus who owns an art framing store in Massapequa.

“He just wanted to give back,” Famularo said. 

The district’s art teachers matted the children’s artwork professionally, and the gallery display was further enhanced with gold brackets suspended from art railings along the ceiling as well as spot lighting, the latter purchased with grant money.

The art gallery event, which was held on Monday, Feb. 22, was the district’s second, the first having been set up last spring. The district plans to hold another one — featuring more of its talented students’ works — this spring.