Mascoma Valley High School and Indian River Middle School
West Canaan, NH (April 23-24)

Wow, what a great start to our 2008 tour! Chris Morse, a super-enthusiastic art teacher at the high school, has worked for several years on developing an interdisciplinary Environment and Arts Week, which culminates in a weekend festival open to the public. It started as an unusual partnership between the art and science departments, and Chris has since gotten other departments in on the game. He has developed it to the point where he's gearing up to apply for a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund the festival – good luck on that, Chris.

The schools are perched high on a hill, and we had a prime spot in a courtyard between them. The students we saw varied from a group of second-graders from Canaan Elementary School to high schoolers who were roam the exhibit at their own pace, to a dozen students who traveled from the private Cardigan Mountain School to experience Ways of the Woods. About 435 students, teachers, and other passersby got a chance to tour Ways of the Woods, and almost  everyone in both schools got a chance to see the exhibit when they ran back and forth to the bus and lunch. One of my favorite quotes from our comment book was from a fifth-grader who wrote, "In the woods you don't have to live up to anything. You can just be yourself.”

We had the company of Dustin Coates, an incredibly skilled wood turner who demonstrated his work to the students. His work included bowls and goblets turned from burls, tops and knick-knacks made from lilac wood, and tiny rattles smaller than a dime. We heard his booming laugh echoing in the courtyard as he engaged kids and adults of all ages. Hopefully we'll be seeing him again.

It was nice a great opening event for 2008, and we look forward to visiting schools from Madrid, NY to Dover-Foxcroft, Maine in the coming weeks.

—Jessie

Did you visit Ways of the Woods in Lancaster? Please