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Shalom Torah Academy's gym transformed into an art museum as the Morganville school put on its first school-wide art show in several years March 10. The elementary school's art program, under the guidance of art teacher Mira Septimus, taught students how to interpret works from famous artists and replicate them for art class.

"I pass out pictures of the artists' work so they can see different types of art that the artists use in their styles, and then the students interpret what they're looking at," Septimus told The Jewish State. "I find a lot of them saying, 'What is that? What does that mean? What is the artist saying?'"

The 1st through 8th grades at Shalom Torah Academy learned that art goes beyond pictures -- that art is a form of communication that can be used to convey a message or feeling through mediums, colors, and styles.

"We talk a lot about how art is a form of communication," Septimus said. "It's not so easy to look at something that's not objective and then try to figure out what it means, especially if it's abstract."

Each grade created their own works of art, typically inspired by artists with techniques specifically attributed to them that the students then recreated in their own versions in class. The 4th grade learned about artist Andy Warhol's "pop art," where an everyday object is restructured with different colors and shades. They made self-portraits four different times and painted them four different ways.

"We talked about where pop art came from, taking an everyday item off the shelf and making it into art," Septimus said. "We talked about how by changing the color, we changed the appearance of what an object is. I said they can paint (their self-portraits) however they want, and they each painted them four different times."

The 4th grade also learned about minimalism and artist Ellsworth Kelly, who took basic colors and shapes and painted them on large canvas.

"He used a lot of very simple colors and simple shapes, and made them large," Septimus said. "I told them that they had three colors to use, and they had to make in such a way that it was the simplest shape, form, and balance of color."

Septimus used specific artists to not just teach style, but to teach basic technique that the artist implemented that the students then learned to incorporate into their own art. The students interpreted Van Gogh's portrait of his bedroom to learn about the vanishing point of a painting and the importance of lines in art.

"When you want someone's eyes to go to the back or to the edge of the paper, you draw the lines in that direction," Septimus said. "We used the bed from Van Gogh's bedroom, and they needed to have two side walls and a back wall. We discussed how when you color in something, it's not just the color you use, but the way you color it. The technique and the mark-making is done in a certain direction because it causes your eyes to follow where you're going, so when you're using this perspective, you make your lines going towards the vanishing point. The line markings showed that they really understood that their eyes went in this direction."

The 6th and 7th grade boys learned about recreating how an object moves in art by putting a figure in a box.

"We were discussing how people are mobile and that people have different joints, and in order to learn how to build a figure and where joints are able to move, we had to fit a figure in a box first to show that yes, elbows and knees bend," Septimus said.

Septimus also taught 1st graders how to make a self-portrait.

"They had to look in the mirror and draw themselves," Septimus said. "We broke it down into different shapes, like eyes and lips, to try and move away from stick figures. They learned to use the tools that they have in order to make their own works."

Students also did their own representations of famous paintings; the 6th grade girls made a modernized version of the Mona Lisa, and other students recreated American Gothic.

One of the most eye-catching exhibits in the room were a section dedicated to large sheets painted like Jackson Pollock, whose trademark was splotches of paint thrown onto massive canvasses; and a series of sculptures inspired by artist Claus Oldenburg, who is known for his larger-than-life sculptures that are put on display in public places.

"They are much larger than life size, like 10 stories high," Septimus said about the sculptures. "The idea is that it makes you look, especially the objects they picked. They picked toothpaste, they picked the Ugg (fur boots); they picked things that had to do with their culture and the culture they relate to, like Starbucks, that everyone drinks. It's right in front of your face, and you don't realize how much it makes an impact on your everyday life."

Shalom parent Jonathan Rosenbluth of Highland Park came to see the artwork that his daughter Judith displayed in the art show.

"She was excited to show off her artwork and she also wanted to see everyone else's artwork," Rosenbluth said. "She was really looking forward to coming."