Flowers, arthropods as art at Sage Point Elementary

MOSES LAKE - Spiders, flies and bugs - ceramic replicas of them, anyway - are all over the benches outside Sage Point Elementary School. So are ceramic flowers, and both are art paid for as part of the school's construction.

Principal Noreen Thomas said about $30,000 (a mix of state and district money from the construction fund) was allocated for the art project, including the selection process. The building opened in 2011 and district officials had selected a project, but the artist decided the proposed sculpture wouldn't work in the space, Thomas said.

Facing a do-over, the committee tasked with selecting a project found Claudia Reidener, of Tacoma.

Reidener explained her concept to the Sage Point students on Monday.

Some bugs are - whoops, they aren't bugs, really. "Actually, technically, (they are) arthropods. Arrrthrooopooods," she said. Arthropods are creatures with their skeleton on the outside of their body, rather than inside, she said.

She showed the kids pictures of the arthropods on the benches, from pill bugs to lacewing flies. The species chosen, both flowers and bugs, are common in the Columbia Basin, Reidener said.

The students got their first official look at the benches right after Reidener's presentation, when every kid at school was invited to go outside, take a look, touch and otherwise study them. A plaque listing the species of arthropods and flowers was installed on the building.

Kids traced arthropod antennae and legs with their fingers, leaned over the benches to study the flowers. Reidener said the "idea (for the design) grew out of the criteria." The rules specified the project must be educational, and Thomas said the selection committee wanted colorful and accessible art too. "Educational, colorful and accessible. This is definitely accessible," Thomas said.

Reidener said she wanted children to be able to play with the art, learn how real bugs really look. She wanted the bugs to show kids the arthropod place in the ecosystem, good bugs and bad, she said.

Reidener told the kids she used clay for the illustrations, just like the clay they use at school. She carved the original plaques, built molds and filled them with liquid clay, she said. The pieces were baked in a kiln, the same principle of the kiln at school, she said, "and then I put color on all your bugs."

She said she was excited to see the project installed, because it was difficult to imagine how it would look on site. She liked the results, she said. "Wow. I couldn't believe it."