Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
WAKEFIELD-MARENISCO'S Bridget Grotberg, an art teacher, shows the piano she was decorating in New York for the Sing For Hope charity. Artists arrived at their own expense to decorate 50 pianos that were being donated to the schools in New York to bring "hope through the arts," according to Grotberg.
By IAN MINIELLY
Wakefield - The sky is the limit when people come together for each other. The "Sing For Hope" charity seeks to place decorated pianos in public schools to supplement the decreasing funds available to schools for extracurricular activities like the arts.
Bridget Grotberg, an art teacher at the Wakefield-Marenisco K-12 School for the past seven years, heard about the program and applied in November.
Grotberg submitted a plan her application, portfolio and resume to incorporate health and fitness into a piano design. She said, "I thought I had a snowball's chance in hell," of being one of the 50 artists selected to decorate a piano.
On Dec. 30, Sing For Hope reached Grotberg and informed her she was selected to decorate a piano.
Now Grotberg had to figure out how to pay for the transportation and 20 days in New York. Motels would cost about $3,000, she figured, but Grotberg investigated Air BnB and found a location she could stay at for only $1,600. Her fellow teachers, school administrators and the superintendent Cathy Shamion came together, enabling Grotberg to leave the classroom for three weeks.
The National Art Education Conference was on her first day. Following that, she spent seven to none hours per day painting her piano in the presence of many well-known and famous artists. As if that was not enough, Grotberg said she also ran the New York Half-Marathon, raising $1,345 on the last day for the "Team For Kids" charity that supports running events for kids.
Grotberg maintained contact with her students by making freeze-framed stills and videos, which she posted on Facebook every day. Involved in those videos were displays of the promises she embedded in the art, demonstrating her pride in her community, and extra credit projects for the kids to identify different pieces of art displayed in New York.
Grotberg included more than 500 "W's" and "M's" in her painting, while also incorporating a large stretch of copper-colored paint with pick axes as a sign of the mining heritage in the Gogebic Range. The daily videos Grotberg created for the students are visible on her specially created Facebook page called, "Ms. G In NYC."
The 50 completed pianos are going on display around the five boroughs of New York June 9-19. They will be available for people to play and there is an app being made available to locate all 50. After the two weeks are up, the pianos are getting placed within different public schools in the city.
