Sterling Morton Students Display Art, Knowledge at Talking Museum

Several Sterling Morton Elementary School fourth-graders seemed to take the seventh annual Talking Museum event a little more seriously than most art projects.

"I'm the most famous painting in the world, right after 'Starry Night' and 'Mona Lisa,'" Grace Kidner said with conviction as her head poked through her group's rendition of Grant Wood's "American Gothic" piece.

"This is my dentist, and that's my daughter," Dylan Armao, acting as Wood, said as he pointed to the famous subjects of "American Gothic. "I decided to paint this because I was driving along and I saw this window. It's Gothic and you don't usually see that in America, so I thought I'd do a painting of it."

Art teacher Jacqui Spetrino said 74 children from three, fourth-grade art classes participated in Friday's event. They were split into groups of four or five and assigned a famous artist and piece of work. The kids used seven weeks to research their subjects, work on paintings and rehearse their presentations for the crowd they knew would be largely comprised of adults.

"It's kind of interesting to see all those people standing and watching me," Sydney Brede said, covered in paint to mimic "David" by Michelangelo. "It makes me nervous, but it's cool to see how many people like me."

One of her partners, Jordan McKinzie, who played the role of Michelangelo, appeared so comfortable that he described his back pains from working on the sculpture for four years.

"When I get to walk around and hear what they say, it amazes me that they really are soaking in, really are learning from this," Spetrino said. "I think that's cool."