NORWAY — High school art students got a lesson in sights and sounds this week.

Fourteen students from Phil Hammett’s 2 Design class at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School visited the Lajos Matolcsy Arts Center on Main Street on Wednesday to view the Painters, Players & Poets exhibit.

The exhibit runs through the end of the month and features 48 of Maine’s most accomplished artists and artisans. They range from musicians and poets Noel Paul Stookey, David Mallett and Jonathan Edwards to painters Robert Shetterly and Kathryn McKay and chair makers Gregg Lipton and Peter Turner.

The 2 Design class is a one-semester class for advanced art students in which the student completes a painting or graphic design project.

“It’s a pretty cool lesson,” said teacher Phil Hammett. He students sat in chairs crafted by Mainers, including a walnut rocker, a maple armchair and a painted captain’s chair. The chairs and paintings are all for sale along with a CD of music and DVD that is provided during the exhibit.

Hammett said the idea of the field trip was to allow the students to not only be inspired by both the music and poetry while viewing artwork and sitting on hand-crafted chairs, but to have them see how various components of their curriculum can be integrated.

The Painters, Players & Poets exhibit includes 16 paintings, nine composers and seven poets, along with 16 chair makers.

The project began in the spring of 2009 and was just recently completed, according to information from the arts center. The process involved the poets and composers identifying a piece by a living Maine painter to which they felt an affinity and then interpreting that piece into either word, song or compositions.

The traveling exhibit was brought to the arts center by the Western Maine Arts Group. The show also features Western Maine Art Group artist Julieanne Reed, poet Kenneth Frost and a chair created for this occasion.

The show continues through Monday at the arts center at 480 Main St. Hours are Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m., Fridays from 1 to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

ldixon@sunjournal.com.