2020-2021 Programs

At Claxton Elementary School, our Specialist Team is committed to providing opportunities for students to be exposed to the arts by individuals outside of our school. It is wonderful to connect students with resources in our local Asheville community as well as around the world through technology. Our Specialists are exploring possibilities to continue our Workshops and Residencies program within the Remote Learning environment.

Fifth Grade Drum Building Residency

Claxton has a wonderful tradition of having 5th graders build and customize their own ashiko hand drums with resident artist Steven Turner of Giving Tree Music. Giving Tree Music is an amazing non-profit organization that empowers community building through drumming. Our amazing Claxton PTO sponsors this project and this year we had a generous donation of materials from our local East Asheville Home Depo to help make it happen. Each year Claxton 5th graders tie-die genuine goat skin drum heads, sand and paint the drum shell, and attach the head to the body of the drum.

This year our drum building residency took place April 21st through 27th. The residency culminates with a drumming performance by 5th graders for the school community led by Steven Turner. Since we could not invite our community to witness that this year due to COVID safety protocols, we hope you will enjoy this video of the performance instead. It also contains some photos of the drum making workshops. We hope that next school year we can return to the tradition of having 5th graders perform at the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) with their custom made drums. To learn more about Giving Tree Music, check out their website: www.givingtreemusic.com.

Third Grade New Monuments Workshops

In recent years, Claxton third graders have researched important figures in Asheville’s history in a project born of the efforts of third grade teacher, Ms. Betts Conti. They investigate which figures are remembered with street names, monuments, and the like; and which ones are missing from our collective memory.

Through this work, the students bring the stories and people often left out of Asheville’s historical narrative to the forefront of our collective memory as they express their learning through various arts modalities facilitated by our specialist team. It is our hope that through this work, the students feel empowered as community leaders and changemakers.

This year, as in years past, we have invited local artist and activist DeWayne B-Love Barton to help guide and influence our work. Third grade students this year were treated to a presentation by B-Love as he spoke of his own efforts as a community leader. Then, he visited some of the workshops to help guide the students in the process of creating. All third grade students were invite to participate in a week-long spoken word workshop with Ms. Rigsby and Ms. Brown, a week-long music workshop with Mr. Butler, and a week-long art and sculpture workshop with Ms. Olson.

The following is a spoken word presentation, written and performed by Claxton third graders.

This is a spoken word presentation B-Love wrote and performed for us in a spoken word workshop Meet:

Second Grade Monarch Butterfly Arts Workshops

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar Shadow Puppetry" Drama Workshop with Ms. Rigsby

"Monarch Butterfly Song and Dance"

Music Workshop with Mr. Butler

Second Grade Butterfly Workshop
in Art Class with Ms. Olson