Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School students are getting a dose of local history with their art studies and using what they learn to interpret and reinterpret the significance of a Cape Cod icon.
At a recent field trip to the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum, students got to view current exhibits as well as artifacts and photos not on display. Then, using clay, press molds, concrete, paint, sometimes combined with actual remnants from the renovation of the Hyannisport home of the late President, students brought JFK’s legacy into the present through artworks now exhibited at Pauline Hopkins Gallery of Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School.
The space program, John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s love of the ocean and sailing, his vibrant personality and the women in his life were some of the inspirations for the exhibit of some eighteen 11th and 12th graders.
Ashley Frye layered slabs of clay over a mold to create a dinghy evoked by JFK’s love of the sea. Arana Hurley too was moved by JFK’s love of Cape Cod waters through his beloved Wianno Senior sailboat the Victura, painting it sailing to the future, embodying for her the words JFK spoke, “My call is not to those who believe they belong to the past. My call is to those who belong to the future.”
