Dawn Lentz, art teacher at Chesterfield Community High, was one of several teachers in Chesterfield to win the Picture America Grant, winning 40 high-quality reproductions of American art.

Caught up in the hectic schedule of SOLs, SATs, and graduations, Dawn Lentz had completely forgotten about applying for a Picture America grant last spring. For the Chesterfield Community High School art teacher, however, the memory came crashing back as it was announced that she was one of several teachers from Chesterfield County to have won the award.

“When I found out about it, I was pretty excited,” says Lentz. “Getting high-quality images is expensive and I don’t always have the time to make them myself. I’m just so glad that we are able to do something else to make the school better for the kids.”

A new program from the National Endowment for the Humanities, in cooperation with the American Library Association, Picture America awards reproductions of notable American art to schools and libraries across the country. The award gives winners 20 laminated posters – printed front and back – featuring 40 famous American works of art, as well as a teaching manual to go along with them.

“This is a good way for us to get large reproductions of artwork that students may see in their history and literature books,” says Lentz. “Since they are so large, they are more accessible to students and students can start making those connections across the board between art, history, and literature.”

Lentz first discovered the award through Carol DeMasi, Library Media Specialist at Community. After DeMasi won a Created Equal grant last year, the American Library Association began sending word of their other available grants.

“The American Library Association has so much money to give away, so we apply for everything that we can. I thought that it would be nice for her to apply for this grant,” says DeMasi.

With the posters set to arrive during the first week of October, Lentz is already planning what to do with them, working with one of the school’s social studies teachers.

“We have been talking about doing a timeline project. We have a lot of white wall space, especially on our second floor, so we want to turn that into an interactive timeline. Students would then be able to create posters in their other classes to be added to the timeline. For instance, if they are studying American literature, they could do a poster featuring Edgar Allan Poe,” says Lentz.

Regardless of what project they do, Lentz is just happy to be able to provide these images to students.

“These are just classic images of American art, showing a continuum of what has been important to our art over the past 200 years,” says Lentz. “These are images that students see already, but may not have put a connection to unless they were told to.”

As the posters will be able to touch so many different areas of study at the school, school administrators are just as excited as Lentz over the news.

“Ms. Lentz is an outstanding, hard-working teacher who always comes through for Chesterfield Community High,” says Anita Storina, principal at Community. “We look forward to working with this artwork.”

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