A Dream Come True

Teacher Applies For, Receives Grant

By Elizabeth Sembower

Staff writer/Lexington Minuteman

Printmaking 2005 is up and running at Lexington’s Bridge Elementary School – thanks to the ageless appeal of an ancient art form, the forward-looking generosity of an education foundation, and the vision and hard work of one very determined teacher.

“It was one of those grant proposals that just stood out,” said Anna Afeyan, Vice-President of Programs at the Lexington Education Foundation, which in the 2004-2005 school year awarded Lynne Murray, art teacher at Bridge, a nearly $4,000 grant to pursue a dream. “This teacher has such enthusiasm and put in so much extra time and work. It made me wish I had had such an opportunity as a student.”

Murray’s mission in simple and yet compelling – to “enrich the art experience of her students” through introducing them to a process she loves. “Printmaking can bring wonder at all ages and levels,” she said. “Its rewards are immediate and satisfying.”

A table in the art room at Bridge holds the myriad examples of this – brightly colored designs as diverse in subject and color as every child’s’ imagination. And on a side shelf stands the shiny object that has helped make it possible, a brand new Ettan Printing Press.

The dream has been awhile in the making. Murray first applied for the grant, which includes purchase of the press, a star wheel, and accompanying materials, when she started in the Lexington School System in 2001 as an art teacher at Estabrook Elementary.

The proposed “high quality” program, built on a curriculum she had started in her first year at Estabrook, would include involvement of all students in grades 1-5 as well as staff development. “Having a printing press that students could use independently and safely to make large-scale work would move this fledgling program forward and allow students to embrace an art form that is tactile, expressive and exciting,” Murray wrote.

This art form has been her passion since she attended MassArt and graduated from their preeminent Printmaking Program in the 1990s. Today she is actively involved in printmaking, showing her work throughout the area, and spending time in a community of fellow artists at the Mixit Print Studio in Somerville. But art has not always been her main pursuit.

“I sometimes ask my students what they think I wanted to be as a child,” said Murray, “they usually say ‘an artist,’ and I surprise them.” Admitting to always appreciating art and possessing what she considers the sign of an artist, “paying attention to how things look,” Murray also excelled in science and math.

A native of Pennsylvania, Murray moved to New England 25 years ago to study at the University of Vermont and Wheelock to pursue yet another passion. “I love being a teacher,” she said. “It is central to my life.”After teaching for a few years, she was lured to the MassArt program and one day, her husband asked her, “Why don’t you become an art teacher?”

Moving to Lexington, Murray began her new career, set about planning a curriculum, and applied for the grant. And then the bottom fell out. An override was turned down, budgets were cut, and she found herself temporarily out of a job. But she never lost hope or her dream, and neither did the Lexington Education Foundation. When she became the art teacher at Bridge, Printmaking Studio 2005 got the go-ahead.

LEF, “an independent charitable organization founded to enhance educational excellence for the children of Lexington,” seeks to encourage teachers engaged in enthusiastic and innovative endeavors, and each year awards a number of grants and fellowships funded by contributions from corporations and mainly from concerned community members. Murray’s grant was one of 23 in out in 2004-2205, from a field of almost twice that many proposals. “I cannot say enough about their generosity,” said Murray.

The beneficiaries are clearly her students, and last year, a special exhibit of their works proved this. This year, a concerted program for fifth-graders will allow students to experience first-hand the real print making process that Murray praises for its incorporation of “both the technical and the artistic.”Along with this is the possibility of shared curriculum with other programs throughout the school, including a concentration on Chinese and Japanese cultures, the wellspring of the art of printmaking. This interdisciplinary approach did not go unnoticed by the LEF. “The fact that she had taken time to consider other curriculum greatly impressed us,” said Afeyan.

One hour a week, students will create monographs, cutting out designs of their choice – fanciful animals, abstract shapes, sports action figures, imaginative lettering – rolling inks of rich hues of blue, magenta, and yellow on Plexiglas plates, securing these and paper among felt blankets, pulling on the firm lever, and turning over a creation.

“At that moment, all students can feel they are artistic, said Murray with satisfaction.