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TARRYTOWN, N.Y. As a part of community team day at Westlake Middle School, seventh grade students participated in The Scarecrow Invasion at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown.
"It gives the students exposure to a public art event and also the chance to add their own insight through creativity," said Susan Crowles, art teacher at Westlake Middle School who was instrumental in bringing the students to Lyndhurst.
The Scarecrow Invasion is a public art exhibit of scarecrows that are custom made by students and other community members. Westlake students had the chance to customize their own scarecrow by decorating a mask in art class and then brought old clothes from home to complete the scarecrow either by themselves or with a partner.
Justin Arrichiello, a student at Westlake, said he enjoyed the chance to customize the scarecrow and chose to paint his mask in a tribal design.
"It's fun to personalize it the way you want it and at the end it shows what makes you," Arrichiello said.
The theme of the scarecrows for the Westlake students who visited Lyndhurst on Friday was "teenage life," and students were encouraged to represent that theme throughout. Faith Obriskie and Juiliana Manzo chose to partner up for their scarecrow and decorated it with their favorite pop culture icons, such as Taylor Swift and the cast of MTV's Jersey Shore.Kiera Tully said she enjoyed seeing her scarecrow progress to a final item.
"Seeing it all put together with everyone else's looks great," Tully said. "We get to see where it all started with a blank white mask to what it is now."
Not only did students have a chance to express themselves artistically, but they also enjoyed a day out of school in the sun.
"We put a lot of time into making the masks so it's fun to finally put it together but it's also fun to be out of school,' Arrichiello said.
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