Color As Identity: The Lenore Ross Curating Program

The Lenore Ross Student and Educator Curating Program is a multidisciplinary arts integration program in which students, teachers, and school administrators engage with works of art chosen from the PAAM’s permanent collection, and create exhibitions in response to collection artwork.

By looking at various paintings from PAAM’s museum collection students from Barnstable High School and Provincetown Middle School investigated how to color relationships of painted abstractions, like black and white, monochrome, and multiple color palettes define an artist’s feeling and identity. We looked for color connotations, like red as passion, blue as calm, or orange as vitality in PAAM collection pieces by Myrna Harrison, Bill Barrell, and Morris Davidson. A thorough discussion of the abstract shape and brushwork of these paintings followed by a demonstration of paint mixing facilitated the students in accessing the subject and process of their own abstract color field paintings. Each outcome was unique and helped reinforce participating artists to find a representation of their identity through chromatic harmonies and symbolism.

Engaging children and youth in the cultural life and creative history of our region has been an ongoing part of PAAM’s mission. In 1992, the Student Curating Program was established, and since that PAAM has presented dozens of student shows in the museum galleries. This current exhibition features students from Barnstable High School and Provincetown Schools IB Middle Years Program who worked with local teaching artist and 2024 PAAM Party Honoree Megan Hinton. Together these groups explored abstraction, color connotation, and personal expression through works in the PAAM collection as well as guided painting practices. Through the concluding exhibition, PAAM hopes to encourage all to enjoy, interpret, and create art freely.