Sisters students display Japanese art at library

Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts have the opportunity to see Sisters Elementary School fourth-graders' kanji and haiku art on display at the Sisters Library, along with other art by prize-winning high school and middle school students.

Students from Clay Warburton's class combined two forms of Japanese art into a beautiful kanji and haiku in color and verse. Japanese characters, known as "kanji" are used to write parts of the language, such as nouns, adjective and verb stems. The form was imported from China during the Han Dynasty around 57 AD, as at that time there was no written Japanese language.

In their paintings, Warburton's students worked with traditional kanji characters and created several areas they used to experiment with color and brush strokes, and were encouraged to blend and place colors together as they desired. Each student also wrote a haiku poem with a set pattern of 17 syllables in each of the three lines, following a 5-7-5 pattern.

Haiku is one of the most important forms of traditional Japanese poetry. The Haiku usually contains a kigo (season word), which indicates in which season the Haiku is set. For example, cherry blossoms indicate spring, snow indicates winter, and mosquitoes may indicate summer - but the season word isn't always obvious.

In addition to the fourth-graders' work, there are several pieces of art from students in middle and high school on display throughout the library, among them, several works done by students from art teacher, Bethany Gunnarson's class. Maclayne Diener and Becky Thomas, who have their work on display in the library, were recently recognized for their artistic talents at the Central Oregon Scholastic Art Awards exhibit held at COCC.

The library art exhibit, sponsored by Friends of the Sisters Library, will be on display until the end of March.