Creating aerial art

Nationally recognized artist Daniel Dancer helps H.B. Lee students see the big picture of endangered species as he directs them to form a giant sturgeon

By Kelly Moyer-Wade

The Gresham Outlook, Jan 26, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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The gathering was part of Dancer’s ongoing Art for the Sky project, which attempts to give people a something Dancer calls our innate “sky sightedness.”

The concept goes something like this: sometimes you have to remove yourself from the world around you to see the bigger picture.

On the ground, the children Dancer poses look like children. From the sky, however, they become dots. These dots have made turtles, mountains, even sturgeon — but the pictures are only visible from the sky.

H.B. Lee art teacher Jaimi Anke said the project was empowering for her children and for the school, which is one of the highest poverty middle schools in the Portland area. More than unifying the students and teachers, Anke said, Dancer’s weeklong school-based project taught them about the environmental issues.

“Our students have very little contact with nature,” said H.B. Lee Principle Carla Sosanya-Tellez. “So I really like the idea of them learning how we are connected, both to the natural world and to each other.”

The middle school collaborated with non-profit environmental advocacy group Columbia Riverkeeper to bring Dancer’s Art for the Sky to H.B. Lee.

Brent Foster, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper said the image of the sturgeon is a key component to this particular Art for the Sky project.

“It shows a strong connection to the river,” Foster said. “In the Columbia River, a sturgeon is like the canary in the coal mine. This is the species we look at when we want to see how healthy the river is.”

Having the children connect to this type of local environmental project was important to Foster’s group and to the administrators at H.B. Lee, but it was more important that the children enjoyed their lesson and Dancer’s project was a unique way of doing that.

“Every kid left here smiling,” Foster said. “If they’re having fun, they’re going to remember this, they’re going to carry these (environmental) lessons with them.”

Dancer will go to other schools along the Columbia River next month to build more “art for the sky.”

To view his previous works, or to find out more about Dancer’s “Art for the Sky” projects, visit www.inconcertwithnature.com.

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