I first heard about art lab when I saw an intriguing notice tucked away on an inside page of the student newspaper, the Bromfield Mirror, inviting “kids and adult members of the Bromfield and Harvard community” to drop by art teacher Sharon Chandler’s classroom at Bromfield after school on Mondays. It turns out that Chandler hosts these sessions just about every week, attracting a gaggle of kids, along with the occasional adult, to come hang out and do whatever art activities they please. My curiosity piqued, I finally stopped by a couple of weeks ago, to check out just what was going on in room 199 at Bromfield, from 2:30 to 4:30 on Monday afternoons.

Scattered about the art room were just over a dozen kids, mainly middle-schoolers, for the most part deeply engrossed in some art project or another. Two or three clustered around Chandler, proudly showing her their work, or peppering her with questions about how to proceed next. The space itself was chock-a-block with overflowing shelves and bins and long tables, with riotous heaps of art supplies, half-finished art projects, and bright-colored scraps of yarn and fabric piled everywhere.

Chandler, who teaches middle-school art, is also a professional artist, with a studio in Lowell. She started doing art lab last fall, because so many of her students wanted to have more time to do art. Chandler showed me around her art classroom, and when I asked how she deals with all the clutter, she just laughed.

“I know where everything is,” she said. “I don’t care about space—I could teach out of a bathroom. As long as I have kids, I have a party.”

Chandler proudly pointed out some of the ongoing projects her students are working on in art classes. For example, the sixth-graders, who are studying the ancient Greeks in social studies, have been making their own Greek vases out of recyclable plastic containers, such as detergent or shampoo bottles. The students first cut up and piece together the plastic into new forms, and then cover them in plaster of Paris, she explained.

“We are doing vases for their Greek Day [celebration], and the kids choose one of 12 shapes,” that ancient Greek vases were traditionally made in, she said. For the final step, the vases will be painted with ancient Greek motifs. The sixth-graders are also going to make togas and laurel wreaths in art class to wear for their Greek Day festivities. As Chandler gestured at the kids’ half-done vases, it was easy to see how these art projects would be a great way to make the subject of ancient Greece come alive for the students, even if some of the vases looked to me a bit more inspired by Dr. Seuss than by classic Hellenic culture.

The laurel wreaths will be made of green felt, which the students will make themselves, with wool from the Fiber Loft store in town, Chandler said. The kids will use felt-making tools recently donated to the art program by For Art’s Sake, an organization recently formed to support art in the Harvard public schools.

Two of the organizers of For Art’s Sake, Melissa Yahia and Bess Haire, had also stopped by during the Monday after-school art lab, to help the students. A resident of Shaker Village, Haire is an artist who makes puppets. She said that art lab usually attracts 15 or more participants, mostly students, but sometimes community residents as well. The townspeople can bring their own art materials, or use the school’s, she explained.

For Art’s Sake wants to encourage such connections between the art program and the community at large.

“We want to foster creativity and to advocate for art in the community,” she said.

Haire sees her group as a conduit to help networking efforts with artists, the schools, and the town.

As the more artistic adults busied themselves with the kids, I wandered around the room. At one table, some of the students were putting the new felt-makers to good use and didn’t seem to mind a reporter looking over their shoulders.

The kids took handfuls of loose wool, and then repeatedly punched them down with a round tool with sharp bristles until the wool fibers were pressed flat against a small frame and transformed into a piece of felt. The students intently picked over various colors of wool, choosing just the right ones to make their material. The end results were felt rectangles, roughly three inches by 10 inches, which the students used to make wrappings for bars of home-made soap.

“Who wants twine to wrap around your felt?” Chandler called out.

When I asked where the soap came from, Chandler said she makes the soap “to relieve stress,” and then gives it away as presents.

At another table, two seventh-grade boys, Billy McNamara and James Authier, were busy sewing away, making hand-sized leaves out of fabric. They were making extra leaves for a seventh-grade art class project, they told me. All the students’ fabric leaves will be collected to put on trees, to “make a forest and display it” in the hall outside the art room, Authier said. When asked if they like art, the boys nodded vigorously, agreeing that it’s one of their favorite classes.

Another art-lab student, Emma Backer-Verbits, likes art so much that she spends some of her lunches and study halls in the art room, as well as taking a regular art class.

“I’m here every day,” she said. When asked if she wants to be an artist when she grows up, she replied, “Ms. Chandler is my role model…she says it’s hard to be an artist, but she’s cool.”

At that point, it was 4:30 p.m., and the two hours allotted for art lab were up. However, when Chandler told the students, “It’s about time,” a universal chorus of “Nooo,” came from the kids.

“Your art teacher wants to go home,” Chandler said in a mock-severe tone. “Put things away. Everybody look at the floor—pick up that wool, or I’ll never do felting again!”

As Chandler shooed the reluctant students out the door, one of the girls told her, “I’ll see you tomorrow, because I love art!”