YOU and YOUR Hilltop Celebrates Peter Max In honor of Peter Max’s visit and art exhibit at the Beachwood Community Center in October, Hilltop Students created a very special welcome sign for him that literally covered the Community Center from top to bottom! This amazing group art project was a partnership between Community Services Director, Karen Carmen, Program Coordinator, Shannon Diamond and Hilltop Art Teacher, Ali Loeb-Munson. Through the generous support of Mayor Gorden and the City of Beachwood, the art materials and paint were provided so that all 275 Hilltop students participated in making individual paintings that were connected to make one large art installation. The students set about their project by first studying the life and artwork of Peter Max and reviewing his collection of paintings from his website. They identified themes, colors and images that have defined his unique style over the years. After the class discussion on the artwork, the students created a paper drawing of their designs, which were then transferred to the corrugated plastic triangles. Students were given the opportunity to paint their triangles exactly like their paper drawings or to make changes inspired by Peter Max and what they learned while doing this project. The Hilltop Students had another unique challenge in this project as one student painted one side of the triangle while another student painted the reverse side. They had to work carefully as to not get paint on the opposite side while they worked on it over several class sessions. At the end of the project, the students completed written reflections on both the drawing and painting art projects. As the plastic flags will remain with the Community Center and not be returned to the artists, each student was photographed with their plastic pennant flag. The students’ photographs were also on display at the Community Center during the art exhibit. The flags were hung to welcome Peter Max upon his arrival to Beachwood in late October. Beachwood students were excited to hear from Artist Peter Max during his artist-inresidency in Beachwood. Lyndia (second grade) and Eva (first grade) Zheng 36 Beachwood Buzz n December 2015 Juan Partick Choi, Isabel Mintz, Suean Choi smiling at the Oct. 24 reception with their Peter Max autographs.