Arts Center Inspires Young Imaginations

In and of itself, the new CBS Media Arts Center at Carpenter Avenue Elementary School is a work of art: bold butter-yellow, tangerine, lavender and royal-blue walls; a student-painted floor; papier-mache birds on top of a cabinet.

And then there are the state-of-the-art computers: 15 new Macintoshes with Internet capability, a higher-powered computer, VHS cameras and Sony TV monitors.

The entire setup was paid for with more than $100,000 from neighboring CBS Studios and the developer of the Laurel Promenade Shopping Center as part of the city’s “Private Percent for Art” program.

At the center’s official opening Thursday, dignitaries, teachers and parents touted the facility as a perfect example of what community-business projects can accomplish.

The center “is an incredible gift to the students of this school, many of whom are going to get an enormous start on their careers,” said City Councilman Joel Wachs, author of the ordinance requiring businesses to pay for public art or art facilities when embarking on big new developments.

After two weeks of computer training, Leo Tolkin was operating a video camera like a pro during the press conference. Later, the 8-year-old showed a couple of his personal films.

Leo explained how he can use the computer to superimpose one image shot against a blue backdrop over another. Using similar technology to that which made Christopher Reeve appear to fly in the “Superman” movies, Leo can make his friend Andrew Fogel, 8, “float” around the room. Pretty cool, the two agreed.

“Now I never groan and moan when my parents wake me up in the morning to go to school,” Leo said, grinning.

Added Andrew: “I’ve made some pretty spectacular stuff here.”

All of Carpenter’s 1,200 students will do grade-appropriate arts projects in the center each year, Principal Joan Marks said. They will learn animation and story-boarding; square dancing and ceramics.

“It’s not just computers,” she said. “It’s total media. It’s total arts.”