AURORA | A miniature mustache, a small cello and a piece of pottery the size of a thimble tumbled from an empty box. The clay objects that hung on the back wall of the Downtown Aurora Visual Arts gallery were symbols of a life cut short, a tactile tribute to a budding artist, athlete and teacher, Alexander Boik.
“I started making it as a storybox, and I was thinking I was going to place all of the pieces inside it,” said Linda Schmale, a Gateway High School art and ceramics teacher who created the piece, titled “Empty Place.” “But it seems more important to convey the emptiness of the room. He’s not here, and these are pieces that he left behind.”
Schmale spoke at the opening reception of the annual showcase of artwork by teachers from the Aurora Public Schools district Jan. 18. The exhibition is normally a chance for APS art teachers to show off their professional side at the city’s only gallery and studio geared toward young artists. The K-12 students who make art in DAVA’s studio after school and show their work during the year have a chance to check out professional pieces by their teachers.
But this year’s show had a different focus and feel. In works by Schmale and other teachers, the spotlight was on Alexander Boik, known to friends as A.J.
Boik graduated from Gateway last year and was headed to the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design to study ceramics. He wanted to be a high school teacher.
Those plans were cut short July 20 when Boik went to a midnight screening of the new Batman movie at the Aurora Century 16. He was one of 12 killed in a rampage that scarred the city and shocked the world.
For APS faculty like Schmale, who taught Boik in classes during his junior and senior years at Gateway, this year’s exhibition at DAVA was a chance to celebrate Boik’s warmth, talent and spirit. Proceeds from the sales of specific pieces in the show went toward a scholarship fund that will eventually help another budding artist from the district.
“We’ve been talking about setting up the fund since we first found out,” Schmale said. “We wanted to do something that was specifically for an Aurora student.”
DAVA was the ideal place to kick off that effort. The gallery serves students from across the district, and the combination of studio space and a professional gallery gives kids insight into art as a possible career.
For Schmale, the show is a small step in a long and painful healing process. Since July, she’s struggled with the loss, along with the rest of her peers and students from Gateway. Because of simple proximity, the campus was hit particularly hard by the tragedy. A number of students were in the theater that night, and the first emergency base was set up in the school’s gym in the hours and days following the shooting.
“I have several kids who were in the theater at the time. It’s a day-to-day thing,” Schmale said. “Any time we have a lockdown, or anything unusual, I still notice the edginess.”
For Schmale, grief came in the form of constant exhaustion and a lack of inspiration. Most of Schmale’s works featured in the DAVA exhibition were made before July; she’s just starting to come back to pottery for therapy and expression.
“I’m making art again, but initially it was hard,” she said. “I just couldn’t go into the studio.”
Part of that hesitation had roots in Schmale’s connections with Boik, who had made plans to follow her professional path into teaching. During Boik’s junior year at Gateway High School, Boik said he wanted to make his skill with ceramics a future career.
Specifically, he wanted to teach ceramics. Schmale helped Boik navigate his college applications; she tagged along on a tour of the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design campus; she celebrated when he found out he’d been accepted.
In Schmale’s eight years at Gateway, Boik was one of only a handful of students that had announced plans to teach art. That ambition left a deep mark on Schmale, as did Boik’s humor, warmth and constant encouragement.
“He showed me ways that I could be playful with my students, ways that I could encourage them,” Schmale said. “There’s the joy and excitement of when a student wants to go on and continue in art, especially to become an art teacher … I’m a little bit more sensitive to my kids, especially the ones that I know were impacted by the shooting. Now, I’m just a little bit more in tune to that.”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com