Young artists from city schools to display My Hometown Project artwork at college

A free, public reception for the young creators of more than 450 works of art by students in the Oswego City School District will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Friday, May 31, at SUNY Oswego's Tyler Art Gallery in the third annual My Hometown Project.

As part of the project, works in the exhibition -- which runs through June 15 -- will go through a jurying process to select 40 to 50 pieces for display throughout the city from April to November 2020 in the colorful My Hometown Banner presentation. Banners chosen from last year's exhibition fly colorfully around the city now.

Students' artwork features a variety of media: painting, drawing, sculpting and mixed media; whatever the approach, the project offers students an opportunity to display their work in a public place, showcasing the city of Oswego as a creative and vibrant community, according to project director Cynthia Clabough, chair of the SUNY Oswego art department.

Jurors for the third annual My Hometown Banner project will include the art department's Traci Terpening, a 1984 alumna of Oswego High School; local artist Mary Pierce, who exhibited her mixed media and print work last fall at Oswego State Downtown; and Ritu Radhakrishnan, a member of the SUNY Oswego School of Education's curriculum and instruction faculty who is interested in how the arts, aesthetic education and technology can serve as an agent for social justice through creating a more integrative and holistic school curriculum.

Clabough made a series of visits to schools around the Oswego City School District to select the hundreds of works for the My Hometown Project during the schools' 2018-19 year. Participating elementary schools and art teachers included: from Charles E. Riley, Rebecca Woods; from Frederick Leighton, Michele Gorham; from Fitzhugh Park, Melissa Valenzuela; from Kingsford Park, Ashley Scaccia; and from Minetto, Erin Platten and Aaron Lee. For Oswego Middle School, art teachers included Stacey Van Campen, Billie Jo Peterson and Erin Platten.

Hours for Tyler Art Gallery for this exhibition are 2 to 5 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, contact the SUNY Oswego art department at 315-312-2111 or visit myhometownproject.org.

Funding from the Robert and Diana Borman and Richard S. Shineman foundations and support from the city Oswego, the city school district and the college make the My Hometown Project possible.