The Warhol of Walmart, Brendan O’Connell, Visits Aldine ISD to Promote EveryArtist Live! Event

The artist Brendan O’Connell, who is known for his Walmart paintings, visited two Aldine ISD campuses to develop a promotional video to recruit students for the EveryArtist Live! event held nationally November 21. While elementary students across the district participated in the national event, students from Kujawa Elementary School and Rayford Intermediate were featured in the promotional video.

O’Connell is internationally known as an artist who explores the consumer experience. He has appeared on “CBS News” and “The Colbert Report” while The New Yorker profiled him. His Walmart paintings have been collected widely and exhibited in New York, Shanghai, Toronto, and Boston and have been reviewed in Art in America and The Boston Globe. O’Connell’s work can range between $1,000-$1,200 and as high as $40,000.

While his paintings may be out of reach for most average Walmart shoppers, O’Connell believes everyone is an artist. With that belief, O’Connell along with like-minded partners, created EveryArtist.me [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]. The nonprofit project is a child-focused movement to support the expression of creativity in every child. O’Connell and EveryArtist.me started EveryArtist Live! in 2012 as way to spark human creativity.

To help fund the 2013 event, EveryArtist.me launched a Kickstarter campaign [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”] earlier this year. Walmart and the Walmart Museum worked with EveryArtist.me to present EveryArtist Live! at campuses. The goal of the event is to simultaneously engage one million elementary school children in an expression of art, making it the largest school art event in history. And it looks like O’Connell has a strong chance of achieving that goal. The event has grown from 8,000 elementary students in Arkansas in 2012 to more than 300,000 across the nation this year.

During the week of Nov. 11, O’Connell visited Aldine ISD to develop a promotional video to recruit students for the second annual art event. He worked with students at Kujawa Elementary School and Rayford Intermediate School to create artist trading cards that depicted the theme of “Gratitude.” The finished artwork was then put on display at the campuses.

The idea, O’Connell says, is to create a widespread, accessible forum where kids feel free to be creative.

[quote]”We as parents and educators need to propel students to an innovative place. I like to use the metaphor that drawing is like vitamins for the brain. It helps kids develop mental patterns, which help them improve their skills in other subjects like math and science.”[/quote]

Debera Thomas, principal at Kujawa Elementary School, agrees with O’Connell.

[quote]”EveryArtist Live brings out their creativity,” said Thomas. “Art helps the other subjects come alive for the students.”[/quote]

Kim Corrick, assistant principal at Kujawa Elementary School, added O’Connell was amazed with the students’ creativity and their ability to express themselves on paper as well as verbally.

[quote]”He was very impressed with the way third-grader John Duong thought outside of the box and interpreted ‘gratitude’ as stepping stones,” said Corrick. “When he asked John about his trading card, John replied, ‘gratitude takes steps; the more steps you take to show gratitude, the better people are towards you.’”[/quote]

After filming Kelly Patterson’s students, O’Connell told her he would love to be a student in her art class because he could see how she inspires the students to be imaginative.

[quote]”I am amazed by the students’ creativity and how articulate and passionate students are about their cards,” commented O’Connell.[/quote]

While at Rayford Intermediate School, O’Connell interviewed and visited with art students from first and second period classes.

Jeneice Robinson, art teacher at Rayford Intermediate School, praised Walmart for supporting art.

[quote]”I think it is a really huge thing that any big company or giant company like Walmart can see the potential for art to make really big changes in the future.”[/quote]

View the promotional video for EveryArtist Live!, which features Thomas, Patterson, Robinson, and of course, the many faces of Aldine ISD students and their artwork.

[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j4EIk00tn8″ width=”560″ height=”315″]