Every Wayside Elementary School student functioned as a critical piece in a massive work of art on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 3. And without a camera far above the ground to capture the art, the only way for the students to make sense of the art would have been to sprout a pair of wings and look down from the sky.

Roughly 560 students, each wearing a color assigned to them based on their grade level, stood in a formation so that Oregon artist Daniel Dancer, the creator of Art For the Sky, could photograph them from his vantage point standing on an 80-foot crane. Dancer had arranged the children as well as participating teachers in such a way that, from above, they all created what looked like a perfect painting of the Wayside Elementary School mascot, a dolphin, jumping out of a blue sea.

“This was our first year having Daniel Dancer to Wayside and working with him,” Wayside Elementary School art teacher Felice Weinbaum said. “When you’re down on the ground, it doesn’t make any sense, until you see what he’s done from the sky. Daniel used every student as a drop of paint. One of the biggest takeaways is that there is so much more that you can accomplish when you collaborate with other people. From the sky, one of us would just look like a dot, where everyone together made this beautiful piece of artwork. The students got to see that they were doing something bigger than themselves.”

Dancer, founder of Art For the Sky, has been working with elementary and middle schools since 2000 through his artist-in-residency program. The program he offers for schools spans three days with the children, and is designed so that it does not keep them out of the classroom for too long. The lessons of Art For the Sky include the importance of collaboration, and perhaps more importantly, he said, the dire need for every individual to appreciate the environment and change the way that humans have been treating it for too many generations.

“What I do is literally art for the sky,” Dancer said, “because in our day-to-day lives, we don’t do anything for the sky. The sky is the atmosphere and all we do is pollute it, and it’s killing us. With the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, we are on our way toward extinction. Of course I don’t go in depth with that specific concern with the students, but Art For the Sky is my best effort to wake people up. Doing each one of these images is a gift for the sky and the earth, and it’s gratitude for the blessings we get every day in spite of what we do to this planet. It’s also an apology for what we’ve done to the earth and unconsciously how we treat it. I encourage students to look at the big picture. We are distracted from the important things by what’s on the screens that are always in front of us.”

On Dancer’s first day at Wayside, last Wednesday, he discussed the logistics behind the artwork they would create the following day. Then, on Thursday, in the midst of light rain, every student met outside to form the piece of art. Dancer snapped photos and took video footage from 80 feet above ground. On Friday, before leaving the students, Dancer presented a video he created of the entire process to the students and faculty. The video included student interviews, film of all the prep work, and finally, views of the final product — “Dolphin Daydream.”

The school assemblies he leads involve original songs to help simplify and further drive home the messages of loving the Earth and the lifelong need for human collaboration.

“I have it down to a pretty good program,” Dancer said. “I have a list of things the schools need to do to be ready. The day we’re actually creating the art, it only takes two hours out of regular school time. Schools are always concerned with classroom time so that the kids can be ready for testing, so, I have it down to a science. As far as the video goes, I start shooting it as soon as I get to the school. Everything always comes together, and the last project at Wayside Elementary School, where the students created the dolphin, was one of my favorites.”

Dancer never holds rehearsals. By the time he arrived at Wayside, for example, he had already diagrammed how and where each person would be positioned. He only once had to mount the 80-foot crane that Weinbaum secured for the day.

Wayside Elementary School was not the first Montgomery County Public School that Dancer had worked with, however, he said he knows it will always stand out in his memory because of its students and the principal, Donna Michela.

“Every school, I’ve come to understand, is a reflection of the principal,” Dancer said, “and usually the schools that hire me are pretty visionary, and therefore, the principals have all been pretty great. This one was particularly outstanding in a number of ways. She had great control of the kids, and at the final assembly – the one where I do a reveal of the photograph and the video, Donna Michela did a recap, and the way it came together was so eloquent. I’m going to use it for my website. She was exceptional.”

Michela was the person who first recommended that Weinbaum get in touch with Dancer, after seeing his work online with another local school.

“She thought that would be a really interesting experience for our school,” Weinbaum said. “Once she passed along information about Art For the Sky, I agreed. We’ve been actively preparing for Daniel’s arrival since school started.”

Weinbaum said it was an invaluable experience for the students, who have been excited to become part of Dancer’s portfolio since the announcement in early September. The experience, she added, absolutely surpassed everyone’s expectations.

“He’s the only artist who does this exact type of collaboration art,” she said, “and this is something I will always remember, and I am sure the same goes for every single one of the students. Every single element of the project showed how impactful you can be when you work with other people. Prior to coming to our school, Daniel had us collect over 300 pairs of jeans to look like water for the picture he created. So, for the past couple of months, every morning, I’d have students coming to the art room, excited to contribute a pair of jeans for the project. Now, we’ll donate all the jeans to charity.”

Since launching Art for the Sky in 2000, Dancer has completed more than 200 projects in 41 states and several international locations. While he primarily works with schools, he does occasionally create his signature art with corporate and other groups.