LAPS art teachers include, front row from left, Jessie Ross, Mountain Elementary; Claire Stewart, LAMS; and Stephanie Rittner, Pinon Elementary. Back row: Dottie Lopez, LAHS; Britt Williams, Aspen Elementary; Andrea Lynch, Chamisa Elementary; Mary Grace, LAHS; and Elizabeth Fisher, LAMS. Not pictured: Libbi Lovejoy, LAHS. Courtesy photo
STEP UP GALLERY NEWS RELEASE
The much anticipated 2025 All Schools Student Art Show showcases the work of hundreds of Los Alamos Public Schools (LAPS) students in Step Up Gallery at Mesa Public Library. The exhibit runs from February 20 to March 12.
LAPS celebrates Student Art Month with an exuberant displayof art representing students from Pre-K through high school seniors. Step Up Gallery at Mesa Public Library hosts this annual show, which opens Thursday, February 20. The public is invited to the opening reception 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the upper-level rotunda outside the gallery. Refreshments are provided thanks to a donation from the Los Alamos Schools Credit Union.
The district’s art teachers go above and beyond to prepare the show for hanging. They are collecting and labeling the art works, planning how work will be displayed, choosing representative pieces and boxing things up to transport them to the gallery.
This year, the art team effort is led by the Los Alamos Middle School art teachers, Claire Stewart and Lisa Fisher. In addition to preparing their own students’ work for exhibition, they are coordinating the timing and the communication between members of the art team and Step Up Gallery managers Katy Korkos and Diane Stoffel.
Stephanie Spanier-Rittner is one of the veteran art teachers in this creative team. She has been teaching for 33 years and has been teaching art at LAPS for most of them. She finds art education essential for students.
“Art education cultivates imagination, creativity, self-expression, problem solving, and critical thinking, Ms. Rittner says. “Art education helps develop fine motor skills and helps encourage social-emotional well-being through creativity.”
She prepares for up to 350 students each week in her classroom at Piñon Elementary School in White Rock. Her students are inspired to work within a theme- many of the pieces in this year’s exhibit will be about sheep, wool and fiber.
“This is strenuous work!” she says.
But she finds the work rewarding. “The most rewarding part is watching the students become proud of their own creativity.
Britt Williams also teaches elementary art for students from PreK through 6th grade. She’s been doing it for 13 years with LAPS. Williams enjoys showing students a new kind of art medium, or technique and building out projects where students can explore these ideas, materials and techniques. She likes to have all of the students put what they’ve learned into one large piece of collaborative art.
“This year we studied the artist Jen Stark and created an entryway installation with brightly colored drips and geometric and organic shapes where each student’s piece of art was featured,” Williams said.
Libbi Lovejoy teaches Ceramics and Sculpture at Los Alamos High School (LAHS). She talks about coming full circle with her art teaching for LAPS.
“I am a LAHS Alumni, and my Elementary Art teacher Stephanie Rittner is still in the district Many of my teachers are now colleagues, which has been fun,” Lovejoy said.
She also credits an amazing theatre teacherin high school with bringing a level of professionalism to the high school productions. She is paying back that experience by helping to sponsor the Topper Revue, which closed last weekend.
Lovejoy finds joy in the wide range of different projects that students make. “I get to know their interests, passions, and see a different side of them that Core teachers never getto know,” Lovejoy says. “The only restrictions that I put on students is that everything needs to be school appropriate.”
Jessie Ross, who teaches visual arts at Mountain Elementary, works hard to create an environment for students in which they feel comfortable to explore their own artistic abilities.
“I love seeing my students work with a variety of mediums to create a piece of work they are proud of,” she said.
She tries to introduce her students “to a variety of different artists and art forms, from Van Gogh to Ted Harrison, Jim Dine to Basquiat and many, many more.”
And Dottie Lopez, digital art and photography instructor at LAHS, closes each email
with this quote, “The true purpose of art education is not necessarily to create more
professional dancers or artists. It’s to create more complete human beings who arecritical thinkers, who have curious minds, who can lead productive lives.” ~Kelly Pollock
Step Up Gallery (https://stepupgallery.org) is on the top level of Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos, at 2400 Central Ave. The gallery is open the same hours as the library: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and 1-5 p.m., Sunday.