Arts
First-graders celebrate the life and art of Mary Cassatt
By Virginia L. Woodwell
First-grader Nicholas Giles is shown here deep in conversation with York School Department Community Resource Coordinator Melanie Ladd at an event held last Wednesday, May 24, that had special meaning for both: the annual Dockside Restaurant luncheon at which all York first-graders celebrate the May 22 birthday of American Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt.
Photo by Virginia L. Woodwell
The force behind the luncheon is Mary Jane Merrill, a retired Acton, Mass., elementary-school teacher whom York School Department Community Resource Coordinator Melanie Ladd introduced into the York school system seven years ago.
Merrill, who is now a member of the School Committee, has been teaching York first-graders about Impressionist paintings and painters - Monet, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, Renoir and Cassatt - on a volunteer basis, weekly throughout the year, ever since. And each year she ends the months of study with the Cassatt luncheon.
Dockside owners Phil and Anne Lusty donate the entire meal, and each year Merrill hires master York cake-maker Owen Dyer to bake a cake to serve as a canvas where he replicates the image of a Cassatt painting chosen by the children.
And this year, as in each year past, before the luncheon is served, Merrill quizzed her students briefly to reveal some of what they've learned and why they've chosen to honor Cassatt.
"How old is she now?"
"A hundred and sixty-two!"
"And why do I have you study Mary Cassatt?"
"Because she was a woman painter - and she was an American!"
"That's right," said Merrill. "She was born in Pennsylvania, then she left and went to France. And what was going on then?"
"The Civil War…"
This year the Cassatt painting picked for Dyer's cake was an 1878 oil-on-canvas titled "Little Girl in Blue," and on the menu - before the cake - were chicken fingers, French fries, pasta with sauce and cheese, vegetables and fruit and a choice of white or chocolate milk. The total head count, including teachers, a handful of attending parents and local art critic Rose Safran, who spoke to the children about Cassatt, was 140.
"Isn't this special?" Merrill asked as soon as all were seated - and her diminutive audience roared back "Yes!"
