Nearly 1,000 West Creek Academy students, parents, administrators and teachers created a “living painting” of a piano.

“For us, the purpose is to show the students that they are a part of something bigger and greater than themselves,” said Kim Morris, program manager for the West Creek Academy PTA. “it gives them a greater perspective on life and the world. When they see the picture and realize that they were one black dot in a sea of a thousand and just how powerful it could be.”

More than 800 students with dozens of parents and school administrators and teachers marched out to the field early Friday morning.

Lowe’s Home Improvement officials worked with school officials and helped to lay down the sand and wood chips that made the outline of the piano.

“This is my third project in Santa Clarita, doing art that only make sense from the sky. It’s a 3,000-year-old art form that West Creek Academy Creates ‘Living Painting’ Of Piano-11started in Peru with the Nazca Lines,” said Artist Daniel Dancer. “That’s kind of my inspiration. The main teaching is what I call ‘sky sight,’ about teaching the kids to have a bigger perspective of the world because the reason we have so many problems on this planet is because the view of the world is too small. None of these images make sense on the ground, so when you use imaginations to rise above your world and look down at it, that’s where the most creative solutions live, is in the ‘sky sight’ view.”

Dancer previously did similar projects with Mountain View Elementary School and North Park Elementary School in the Santa Clarita Valley.

“One of the focuses this year has been music and we’re excited to create a keyboard,” said Assistant Principal Sue Bett. “All the students have an opportunity to be like the paint drops in the picture and it’s fun for them. Afterwards, they usually know exactly where they are and can point it out, but together it blends and makes a keyboard.”

Dancer has created more than 150 of these projects, in 40 states and seven countries. He likes the “collaboration and creating something bigger than ourselves” as well as the “cool team-working anti-bully component” of the projects.

“The power of collaboration and what you can do when working with people, the crane, the principal, the parents the kids,” he said, “everybody shows up to do something amazing and feel the power of that as it kind of spreads.”