Free and open to the public
Saturday, May 17 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Art by Ms. Yutkin’s Second Grade Class.
GLOUCESTER, Mass. (May 2025) – On May 17, Cape Ann Museum invites the public to the opening reception of two special student installations on display at CAM Green (13 Poplar St., Gloucester). Feathered Friends, a second-grade project, and Facing Back, Facing Forward, an installation by Cape Ann eighth-grade students, will be on view through June 1.
The student exhibitions are a major highlight of the education programs at CAM and are designed to engage the community in celebrating a sense of place through artmaking. CAM Educators work with approximately 600 Cape Ann Students in the second and eighth grades each year, visiting classrooms to make art with the students and teach about an artist from the Museum’s Collection.
“Everyone is welcome to view this year’s collaborative installations by second and eighth-grade students of Cape Ann, enjoy art making activities, tour the White Ellery House, and take a Cassie Scavenger Hunt through the James Center Gallery,” says Oliver Barker, Director of Cape Ann Museum. “We hope you will join us this May as we celebrate the history and culture of this place through the creativity and voice of Cape Ann’s youngest artists. The Museum’s Cape Ann School initiatives have reached over 2,500 local students since 2021.”
The Feathered Friends project introduced second-grade students from Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester and Essex to the Folly Cove Designers, a 20th-century guild-style group of printmakers led by Virginia Lee Demetrios, and a cornerstone of CAM’s Collection. Students learned about the designers’ use of pattern to tell stories and Demetrio’s inspirational messages to make art about cherished places, resulting in the students creating their own block prints of Cape Ann’s notoriously whimsical bird, the seagull. In the final display – a sculptural piece featuring the Museum’s beloved Cassie the Sea Serpent – the children’s seagulls fly across the waves surrounding Cape Ann’s legendary creature.
Eighth graders from across Cape Ann learned about the collection of historic maps in the CAM Library & Archives for the installation Facing Back, Facing Forward, including the map of today’s Gloucester harbor area titled, Les Voyages, by Samuel de Champlain (c. 1567-1635), originally printed in Paris, 1613. The project included conversations about inventing symbols to communicate data, the many purposes of maps, and the influence of the map maker whose perspective influenced how a place was depicted. Working with CAM Educators, the eighth graders traced the profile of their faces on acrylic using paint markers; and, with this one line as their starting point, created their own maps to represent both real and imagined places. Facing Back, Facing Forward is on display on the stone wall at the center of the CAM Green campus.
The eighth-grade project was installed in partnership with Cornerstone Creative, a local after-school youth mentorship woodworking and craftsmanship program.
The opening reception on Saturday, May 17, is in partnership with The Gloucester Student Arts Festival. Parking will be available at O’Maley Innovation Middle School, 32 Cherry Street, Gloucester. CAM is delighted with Gloucester Education Foundation’s partnership and sponsorship of the shuttle bus service from the school to CAM Green, running continuously from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Feathered Friends and Facing Back, Facing Forward are sponsored by Gloucester Cultural Council, Rockport Cultural Council, Manchester Cultural Council, Essex Cultural Council, and Massachusetts Cultural Council.
