A sunny day at the Port of Tacoma sparked creativity for students from Kalles and Aylen Junior High Schools in Puyallup, transforming a field trip into a hands-on artistic experience.
During their visit, students explored the inner workings of a busy international port. They toured the Port’s maintenance department, stepped out onto a terminal, and even climbed partway up a container crane for a sweeping view of the Sitcum Waterway. With Mount Rainier visible in the distance and cargo operations happening in real time, students experienced global trade up close.
Throughout the tour, teachers encouraged them to see the environment as artists, observing shapes, colors, movement, and perspective with the goal of turning those impressions into artwork. They took selfies, watched massive cranes move containers, and learned about the Port’s history and operations.
Back in the classroom, students channeled those experiences into a wide variety of creative projects. Using acrylics, watercolors, oil pastels, ceramics, pencil drawings, mixed media, and even written pieces, they explored different ways to express what they had seen. Some focused on precise details, while others interpreted the experience in more abstract ways.
For ninth grader Xavier King, capturing accuracy was a challenge that took time.
“It’s hard to get the shapes right,” he said of his painting based on a photo taken during the tour. He spent four days working to refine his piece.
Classmate Skye Baptista was drawn to the bold colors and patterns of stacked containers.
“I found inspiration more in the containers than I did anything else, because they had more color,” Baptista said.
The students’ finished artwork was displayed in the atrium of the Port’s administration building during a Puyallup/Sumner Chamber of Commerce after-hours networking event, where community members, business leaders, and families gathered to view the work while enjoying appetizers and refreshments.
As attendees moved through the building, they saw varied pieces featuring cranes, ships, and containers, as well as local marine life like harbor seals, ducks, and seagulls. Many pieces also captured scenic views of Mount Rainier, the Tacoma skyline, and the waterfront from different perspectives and times of day. From intricately crafted ceramic ships stacked with containers to striking watercolor paintings of harbor seals peeking above the water, the artwork showed the students’ originality and unique perspectives.
Aylen Junior High School art teacher Amanda Warring said she gave her students the freedom to find their own creative direction.
“I told them we as artists all find inspiration in different things and in different moments, so they got to really choose whatever inspired them,” Warring said. “We have some things that are a literal translation of what they saw and then others that are more of their interpretation, or more abstract.”
For Warring, the opportunity to tie real world experiences to classroom learning made the project especially meaningful.
“It was a unique, fun experience for our students,” Warring said. “It’s not often that I get to take my classes out somewhere to get that real life inspiration for their art, so seeing them translate what we saw into their art was kind of cool.”
