New York Collage Artist Visits Swain School

When l art teacher Barbara Ward brought collage artist Michael Albert's book,"An Artist’s America," to class one day, the students were so inspired they encouraged her to Google him to find out where he lived and contact him to see if he would be interested in visiting their school.

Thus began the school's contact with the New York artist, who spent a week as artist-in-residence earlier this month at the school in Salisbury Township. Albert visited the classrooms of art teachers Ward and Gail Ortner and talked about how he was inspired one day to create art out of an empty cereal box. He's been making vibrant pieces out of recycled material ever since.

With instruction and inspiration from Albert, students learned how to make their own colorful collages by cutting out letters and pictures from magazines and gluing them in creative ways on paper.

The public can view a selection of Albert's work on display at the school until December, or view them at www.swain.com or www.cerealism.com