Ashley Falls School sixth graders recently completed a legacy project on the Carmel Valley campus, leaving their imprint before they fly off to middle school.
On a 13-foot-tall wall almost 40 feet across, a kaleidoscope of metal butterflies are now in flight, fluttering around a centerpiece painting on aluminum metal. Inspired by the students, the art installation depicts hands cradling a planet earth with a tree sprouting atop, surrounded by flowers in bloom and a flurry of butterflies in an arc that matches the metallic butterflies on the wall. The project is so large in scale that a visiting reporter had to climb onto a step ladder just to capture it in full.
Below the artwork, fresh plantings of pincushion protea flowers in a rainbow of colors dot a linear garden, brightening up a path students and teachers will walk every day.
When the sixth graders began working on the project back in January, they crafted a guiding mission statement that rooted everything they did: “How might we, the Ashely Falls community, create an art installation that fosters a beautiful space that values and welcomes all, inspires meaningful connections, promotes peace and kindness, and encourages individuals to come together to make a positive difference in our community and beyond.”
The sweet statement was included in pamphlets the students handed out when they unveiled their project on May 22. The unveiling event to the school and families also included a screening of a documentary they produced about the very many steps it took to bring the art to life.
“No ordinary plain elementary school gets to do this,” said sixth grader Michael Saportal said of the project for the whole community that will last long after they’re gone.
“It opened my eyes,” added student Grayden Stephenson. “It showed me that if you work really hard you can create something truly amazing.”
The not-at-all ordinary or plain art installation project was a hands-on design thinking challenge dreamed up by Ashley Falls’ sixth grade teaching partners Thalia Ormsby and Caitlin Fallon-McKnight. The teachers are always looking for creative lessons that teach students to collaborate and solve cross-curricular, real-world problems. This art project was meant to build on their last big project in 2023, when their students redesigned a lonely portion of the school courtyard, transforming it into a butterfly garden and monarch waystation. It’s a project that is still thriving, filled with colorful flowers and monarch-enticing milkweed with a little pathway winding through.
“Watching kids walk through this path…they’re so connected to the space, it’s really cool to see students use it.” Ormsby said
This year, the teachers turned their attention to a blank wall on campus, around the corner from the butterfly garden. When they asked the kids what they noticed about the space, they said they never really thought about it. It was just a “sad” wall with dead plants and sometimes trash underneath, something to on the way to lunch or recess. It needed some love.
Fallon-McKnight had a spark of an idea to work with metal to create a lasting art installation for the school. She enlisted her high school friend Miki Iwasaki, a well-known artist whose public art installations include a piece at the San Diego Airport. Iwasaki offered to help by deg and building a metal frame and poles to anchor a student-inspired public art piece. Fallon-McKnight also tapped her aunt, painter Lisa Fallon, to help bring the kids’ artistic vision to life.
The students met with the artists in person and over Zoom, talking a lot about messages and meaning in art and how to use space. Iwasaki built the aluminum frame that Lisa Fallon painted and the kids painted the accompanying metal butterflies.
Teams of artists worked together to create potential designs for the artwork and the entire school voted on their favorites with the top three going to Lisa Fallon to integrate into her work.
Lisa Fallon drew inspiration from their creativity, noticing an earth and hands in almost all of them, the use of green trees and a lot of butterflies that carried different meanings for the students, including hope, vitality, diversity and welcoming. “Their short and vibrant lives remind us to cherish each moment and work hard for our dreams,” wrote one group of student artists. One interpretation left Lisa Fallon incredibly moved: “This piece is a reminder to heal and help, not break and hurt,” the students wrote.
“The art is for the viewer to interpret, but what was really important to the students was the connection between this space and the 2023 butterfly garden,” said Ormsby.
Lisa Fallon traveled from out of state to paint her work on the metal frame in the campus MUR the week of May 5-9, a workspace surrounded by the students’ art. She continued to be inspired while on campus, painting in flowers that were blooming in the butterfly garden.
For the students to be able to do anything physically to the wall and structure, they needed to involve the district. The students’ initial idea was to mount each metal butterfly individually, but they had to change gears when they were told they needed to be connected. Working through scale and proportion challenges, the students mapped out the designs with paper versions spread out on the school blacktop. The school also voted on the top design for the butterfly flight pattern, a flowing look that moves right in and out of the painting.
The teachers had initially requested $5,000 for the project from the Ashley Falls PTA and about half of that cost would have been in materials. Fortunately, a school family, the Carnicks, donated the metal from their business and also donated the use of their laser-cutting machine at Thunderbird Products to make the butterflies. The donation dramatically reduced the cost of the project and the students were able to stay under budget and donate the remainder back to the PTA.
For the plantings underneath the art installation, the students worked with “Kenny the Plant Guy” Kenny Bailey, whom Ormsby had met after buying some of his beautiful pincushion proteas at the Cardiff Farmers Market.
“He met with the students and shared his enthusiasm for the plants,” said Ormsby of the circular flowers with spiny sprays that come in multitudes of bright colors, like little fireworks. They discussed a landscape design that would incorporate a lot of color, featuring pincushions and utilizing leucadendrons that would grow tall and reach the bottom of the painting, filling in the wall space. The students were also mindful of picking plants that were drought-resistant and would flourish without a lot of water.
The sixth graders created an infomercial to share with every Ashley Falls classroom and each grade level voted on a pincushion color for the garden. As one younger student remarked: “It feels like it’s a piece of all of us is in there.”
Some Ashley Falls dads helped to install drip irrigation and lay mulch and the kids did the planting over the last few weeks.
With the project completed, the students reflected on how much work and thought went into the project. Starting with just one idea, they worked to bring together differing opinions, persevered, and adapted when they hit walls or obstacles.
“I’m really grateful to have been a part of this project,” said student Riya Bijlani. “It wasn’t one person, it was the whole sixth grade.”
Every student found a way to play their part, whether that meant figuring out schematic challenges of butterfly flight patterns, flexing their artistic muscles, editing the documentary that told their project’s story or getting their hands dirty in the garden.
As student Jaden Handwerker said, before people would just walk on by without even glancing at the wall. But now, people notice: “It feels good to know we can make a difference in people’s day,” he said.
“I love how this connects to the butterfly garden,” said student Josh Benmoshe. “I hope it can last for generations to come to see this beautiful art.”
The teachers couldn’t be happier with the finished product, knowing the impact the students made and how every aspect holds such a deep meaning. It is also especially meaningful as this year’s project is their swan song as the teaching team will be separated next year.
Fallon-McKnight said Ormsby is “like sunshine in a bottle” and she will miss her more than she will ever know.
“Teaching with her has been the highlight of my 27-year career. We have done some pretty amazing things together,” Fallon-McKnight said. “Her students are very important to her and she connects deeply with them each year. She was really excited about doing this project together and we took it on like two crazy teachers who trusted in each other completely or it wouldn’t have made it to fruition.”
“I couldn’t have done this without her heart, vision and ideas, and the sheer will she brings to this job and her students,” echoed Ormsby of Fallon-McKnight. “She’s not afraid to go big and do something that hasn’t been done before.”
