Celebrating a century: Danvers Prep kicks off centennial celebration

Last Saturday, more than 1,500 people showed up on the campus of St. John's Preparatory School to help the Danvers school officially kick off its centennial celebration with Family Day. Despite the intense heat during the day and the sudden rainstorm during the communal barbecue, Prep alumni and their families toured the campus, reconnected with classmates and made new friends.

For many, returning after a number of years, the changes to the campus were significant. They marveled at the Studzinski Library, which didn't exist before 2003 and is now a focal point on campus. It sits between Memorial Dining Room and Brother Benjamin Hall, which has also undergone a major updating. Over the entrance to the library, designed like a building on a college campus, a stained-glass window glows warmly as the daylight begins to ebb, and artificial lighting brings out the colors in the impressionistic design meant to represent the courageous journey of the first Xaverian Brothers who came to these shores to pursue their education ministry.

Earlier graduates were amazed at the Ryken Center for the Arts, which opened in 1995, replacing a dormitory they may have even lived in before the resident program began its five-year phase-out in 1970.

Within its walls students study drama, music, art, ceramics - everything that contributes to helping the young men grow creatively in addition to morally, spiritually, physically and academically. It's part of the mission statement: "St. John's Preparatory School, a Catholic Xaverian Brothers sponsored secondary school for young men, is committed to educating the whole person."

Harriet Malone and Dale Bryant are the two creative talents that make up the art department. Malone, who teaches art, joined the Ryken faculty the year the center opened. Bryant, who heads the ceramics division, followed a year later.

Their collaboration in many instances has produced some interesting projects. One is the Peace Labyrinth, where people can walk, sit or meditate. It was something Bryant had always wanted to bring to campus and involved several disciplines. It was completed by the start of the 2005-2006 academic year.

A centennial highlight

At the suggestion of Headmaster Skip Shannon that the arts department come up with a project for the centennial celebration, Malone thought of an installation and she and Bryant offered to have the students do one beside the glass doors leading into Ryken.

According to Wikipedia online encyclopedia: "Installation art<span> uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way we experience a particular space. Installation art is not necessarily confined to gallery spaces and can be any material intervention in everyday public or private spaces."</span>

The two teachers asked last year's class for ideas on what they would like to see. They decided that a fine arts building should have something on the outside to represent what was inside. The result: two large panels beside the doors, each panel 9 feet by 4 feet with art words - imagination, music, drama, vitality, art, imagination, music and creativity - interspersed and individual images set into colorful ceramic tiles.

"That came from the kids," Malone says. "They researched images for the tiles."

It took many hands to get the concept and images from paper to the tiles. Printmaking classes took the images and cut them into heavy linoleum, clay sculpture kids in the spring semester put down the clay and pressed the images into it with rollers, according to Bryant.

Clay blocks were baked and glazed. Tiles were then mounted on cement board in six different panels, three for each side. Bryant and Malone grouted between the tiles, which were then screwed into the bricks on the building by the facilities staff.

"I decided they needed something in between the blocks," Malone says. "I imbedded colored stone, marble and mirror, which flicker in the light.

"This is only the beginning," she adds. "The kids have already picked out spots for more art work."

History

St. John's has come a long way from its beginnings.