Northport Public School K-12 students, staff, families, and community members packed into the Northport Art Association (NAA) on Thursday for the opening of the district’s “Origin & Echo” show. The intergenerational show, the first of its kind for Northport, featured both adult artwork inspired and paired with student work. Kids from Northport’s Dandelion Discovery Center also participated, as well as residents from Northport Highlands.
Students and adults that were paired together at random in the school-wide art show ranged in age, with participants as young as 10-months-old to as old as 99-years-old. Adults, the “echo” of the students’ “origin” art, used various mediums to respond, creating everything from sculptures and electronic pieces, to needle felting and mosaics.
“Your work created a space where conversations between artists, students, and community members could come to life… To our artists, thank you for your courage, creativity, and for putting yourselves out there. You are the original artists who sparked the entire process to even happen in the first place. You started this beautiful collaboration,” said Jen Evans, Northport art teacher and show organizer. “Origin and Echo is about connection — between generations, between hands and materials, between original ideas and the unexpected places they travel… Notice how one piece inspires another, how stories stretch across ages, and how creativity lives in conversation. We mirror the people beside us, and they mirror us.”
Dick Allen, 99, the oldest participant and Northport Highlands resident, attended the show with his daughter, Nancy Didrichsons. Allen’s art piece, a colorful painting with a sail boat at center, was placed alongside one of, if not the youngest artist on display, Lucy Humphrey, a 10-months-old from Dandelion Discovery Center. He created his artwork based on Humphrey’s “color study” canvas coated in pastel pinks and yellow tones.
“He (father) was a sailor… he’s a mechanical engineer by trade and also did a lot of stuff and hobbies, but he likes to paint and he likes to have it exact,” Didrichsons said. “I think he enjoyed the painting experience, the sailboat was his hobby. He used to race sailboats here with all the guys.”
Northport high schooler Valerie Glidden and her father, Tracy, and grandfather, Norm Walter, were excited to see the mixed media art work on display, especially the piece paired and inspired by her own painting. Glidden’s art inspired the adult artist to think of sound waves, so he submitted a unique “organismic analogue synthesizer” as his “echo” art. The device resembles the “tone generators in old electric organs,” and people were able to make different sounds adjusting the functions on the board.
Tracy, Glidden’s father, said the Origin and Echo show is inspiring for young artists as they not only get to create their own work, but they get to see another older adult artist come in, respond to their work, and show them other directions their art can take them or go.
“It wasn’t another painting, it was a whole other art medium, which is sound. It’s even better, it’s not drawing, it’s not paint, it’s something totally different that nobody really thinks about,” Tracy said. “I think it opens up a door for young artists and I think this is a great thing because it gives them another perspective on what their art could actually be.”
Northport senior Corbin Robertson used charcoal and graphite to depict a trench underwater with a tentacle monster and an unsuspecting submarine. Robertson, like the other students, met his “echo” artist, Laura Kalchik, for the first time at the opening show, and said other than the event itself being really exciting, he enjoyed the mystery of not knowing who his recipient was in the process.
“I submitted this piece not really for what it was, but for the challenge that it was for me,” Robertson said. “I love where she (Laura) went with it, and I couldn’t be happier.”
Kalchik, who specializes in miniature art, said she wasn’t expecting such an elaborate piece to work with, but when she saw Robertson’s art, she took her mother’s suggestion of using a cookie sheet to incorporate her multimedia style and to match the proportions of the student’s work.
“I used all sorts of things, paint and nail polish, stickers,” Kalchik said. “I really wanted to continue on the story with my piece — from the ocean all the way up (to space).”
Third grader Lynel Raphael’s “observation in print making” drawing displayed a sunny, spring-filled day with mushrooms at the center, one of her favorite seasons. The adult that echoed Raphael’s work, Janet Wessels, used machine applique to sew on a similar spring scene to the back of a small jean jacket. After the show, Wessels said Raphael can take home the jacket to wear and enjoy.
“I like working with fabric. It was very easy to take her images and just change it from what looks like pastel on to fabric,” Wessels said. “I had pieces of wool cut out and stitched on with a machine.”
While Evans said she is not following the same prompt as Origin and Echo next year, she plans to continue with a project that’s “centered around community and collaboration.” The show exceeded Evans expectations, she explained, adding that the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and how it’s been incredible to see how deeply it resonated with people.
Evans is in the early stages of planning next year’s large-scale project and said she’ll be introducing a new concept that will involve the greater community. In addition, Evan has been invited to present Origin and Echo at a national conference, which she said speaks to the importance of projects that connect generations and voices.
“Learning is a lifelong practice. By inviting the skills, experience, and perspectives of seasoned artists into the conversation, we create richer opportunities for students to grow — not just as artists, but as people,” she said. “We have so much to learn from one another, and in a global society, the ability to collaborate, share ideas, and work together is an essential life skill. It truly takes a village to raise a child, and I’m grateful to be part of one that values creativity, connection, and community.”
