By Amanda Dyer  – 

While tight budgets are forcing many schools to scale back art programs and concentrate on higher test scores, at least one Oakland elementary school has sustained its program through creative fundraising.

In its latest attempt, Peralta Elementary School challenged eight artists to create eight pieces of work in eight minutes.

The event, a paint-splattering free-for-all, raised $5,700 for the school.

While other schools in Oakland Unified School District have struggled to meet the demands set by the No Child Left Behind Act, Peralta Elementary School earned an Academic Performance Index score of 863 last year.

First-grade teacher Calvert Hand concentrates on his work. Hand participated in Cre8, an event where eight artists painted eight pieces of work in eight minutes, for Peralta Elementary School.

The Academic Performance Index, or API, is a 200-to-1,000-point scale by which the state measures how well students, schools and districts perform from year to year. Each school strives for an API score above 800.

Rosette Costello, principal at Peralta Elementary, attributes at least some of that success to the school’s Arts Learning Laboratory program. The program emphasizes a teaching framework based in the arts, allows for artists in residence at the school and provides after-school art programs for students. Arts Learning Laboratory schools also host workshops for educators in other districts.

Costello said art helps students develop their critical thinking, reflection and problem solving skills. By teaching the arts, educators can also reach a wide range of learning styles.

With student art covering most campus walls, Peralta Elementary’s buildings, themselves, are a testament to the success of the program.

But, according to Calvert Hand, an artist and first-grade teacher at Peralta Elementary, the school’s staff has also had to apply its creativity to keep the program funded.

“The state pays for very little,” Calvert said. “We’re professional beggars.”

Peralta receives $20,000 a year from the Alameda County Office of Education, said Louise Music, coordinator at the county office. Arts Laboratory schools must do fundraising to cover additional costs.

Peralta Elementary teamed up with Messy Monkey Arts on Nov. 12 at Swarm Studios and Gallery, located at Oakland’s Jack London Square, for Cre8, a night of timed paint flinging by several Bay Area artists.

Dressed in white coveralls, the artists gathered around a ring of eight canvasses, armed with household gadgets, like toilet plungers, potato mashers and brooms.

Artist hurry to finish their paintings as onlookers cheer.

During the first round, artists spent one minute at each canvass, building upon the previous artists’ work. During the second round the artists moved their canvasses to different stations, where they could use different tools.

The crowd that packed into Swarm Studio’s back room cheered the painters on and dodged paint, cast from the artists’ tools.

After two rounds, the artists auctioned off the paintings, some going for upwards of $500, to the crowd.

Kelly Wainwright-Vaagsland, founder of Messy Monkey, has used the eight-minute-art concept for a couple of years as part of team-building experiences for businesses and corporations. Usually, Wainwright-Vaagsland said, the people who come to Messy Monkey have limited or no artistic background.

She said she often wondered what it would be like to do eight-minute art with professional artists, and thought, maybe she could raise money for a good cause at the same time.

Svea Lin Vezzone, director and owner of Swarm Studios, said she was glad to host the event at her gallery.

While art is a crucial part to education, Vezzone said, it’s almost always the first thing to go during rough financial times.

“It’s totally insane,” Vezzone said.

Penn Phillips, 42, bid for and won a piece, painted by Hand, his son’s first-grade teacher.

Phillips said in Hand’s class, there are no limits and no parameters. And as a result, his son, Skyler, is absolutely thriving.

Through his and others’ purchases, Phillips hopes to keep that tradition going.

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