By Dina Sciortino

HASTINGS — Family, friends, and acquaintances of Skylar Sonn Tancredi, known to them simply as “Sky,” gathered this past weekend in the middle/high school cafeteria in Hastings to collaborate on “The Sky Mural,” a montage of clay tiles that honors and celebrates his life.

At the start of this weekend’s workshops, project coordinator Cliff Mendelson, a ceramic artist and founder of “Day in Clay,” a program that offers clay art classes to schools and students throughout the county, told everyone, “This mural is about defining him [Tancredi] by his attributes … not by how much you might miss him but by creating a tribute to who he is as a person.”

On Saturday and Sunday, tiles were completed by transferring their chosen images onto 6inch squares of wet tile, which were made ahead of time by Mendelson. To transfer the images, participants traced the designs with marker, then placed the tracing paper, wet from the marker, onto the clay. Mendelson taught the group how to use carving, coiling, slab and hand-building techniques to create a bas-relief effect. He also provid-

© 2008 W.H. White Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2008 THE RIVERTOWNS ENTERPRISE — REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

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ed the proper tools to achieve such effect. Each piece was painted and set aside to dry. One tile showed clasping hands; another was adorned with dolphins.

Hastings resident Linda Cimillo has volunteered to fire the tiles in a kiln at her private studio on Broadway, in the La Barranca building. Then local contractor Ron Paquette will glue the tiles and grout them together. The grouted composite will be put in a frame and mounted in the Farrgut Complex (middle/high school) cafeteria by George Foster, superintendent of buildings and grounds for the Hastings School District.

A final workshop will be held at the end of the month for Tancredi’s teachers, coaches, cousins, and friends who expressed their desire to participate, but were unable to make it on Saturday and Sunday. So far, 109 tiles have been completed. Mendelson estimates the project to be completed and mounted in April.

Sonn says she is incredibly grateful for the community’s support for this project. Mendelson’s services, the clay, and glaze were paid for with money raised by high school and middle school students. The Ardsley School District also helped to fund the project. To raise money, Hastings students sold black T-shirts bearing Tancredi’s football number, 7, and the words “Live up to the Sky,” at October’s homecoming game. Cameron McNeil, a fellow HHS athlete, created blue rubber bracelets, which read “Live to the Sky, In Loving Memory of Skylar Tancredi,” and sold them in the community right after Tancredi’s passing. Proceeds were used to buy and install a bench in honor of Tancredi, which is located at MacEachron Waterfront Park, and leftover money from bracelet sales was used to fund the mural project. Sonn says her husband, Louis Tancredi, and their younger children Siena, 11, and Sander, 7, have kept their bracelets on for more than a year, and some of Skylar’s friends sporting them last weekend noted that the bracelets were showing signs of so much wear.

Long QT screening project

Skylar’s grandmother, Sandra Sonn, is applying to start a public trust called “Sky on the QT.” The public trust will seek to advocate for proper medical exams for pubescent athletes. Giving students electrocardiograms (EKGs) when they have their medical exams to play sports would identify Long QT syndrome. If the condition is identified, then the youth would be disqualified from vigorous sports like football. Currently, most insurance companies won’t pay for EKGs in these routine medical exams. Sandra Sonn says that she would like to make the public aware of how critical an EKG’s findings can be, and encourage the government and medical insurance companies to pay for such screening.

She describes her late grandson as having a warm, generous personality that touched many people. Skylar’s friends would definitely agree. As his closest pals gathered into a nook at the back of the cafeteria, next to the wall where the mural will be mounted, they repeatedly told a reporter, “Sky was the man.” There they laughed and smiled as they reminisced about fun times shared with him. Rasulo said, “Sky had no fear. He was always there to talk to, have fun and kick back and relax with.” Gorman remembered hanging out at his house with Sky. “He was the most generous and coolest person I have ever met. I have more respect for him than anyone else,” said Gorman.

Gorman’s entire family — mother Adele, father Drew, brother Steve and sister Maggie — participated in the mural project. “We loved him so much, he was a part of our family,” said Adele Gorman. She said Skylar and Vincent “were truly brothers,” and while his passing has rocked their

worlds, they are all better for having known him.

Heidi Sonn feels that there is a “healing aspect” involved in participating in creating this “living piece of art.” She is “touched that in any way people want to share their feelings about Sky,” especially through the medium of art and clay. She says, “A lot of kids came up to me and said that this workshop has helped them to heal and move forward.”

Skylar’s grandmother said, “My husband [Stanley Sonn] and I are extremely grateful something like this is being done.” She said most of her grandchildren — Siena and Sander as well as their cousins — go to school or will go to school at the Farragut Complex and now this will be something that they can see all the time and share. “Being able to have our family participate makes us extremely happy,” she said.

© 2008 W.H. White Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.