2011 Summer ArtReach

Posted by Meg Gianetti on August 5th 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: Museum of Art, Summer ArtReach

There’s been a whirlwind of activity happening these past three weeks at ArtReach! Ten different community centers involving 230 students, aged 7 to 13 years old, and 50 adults participated in the creation of our 2011 Summer ArtReach Exhibition on display now through August 31. This year’s participating community centers were Boys and Girls Club of Utica, Salvation Army, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, A.C.E. Respite, Thea Bowman House, Neighborhood Center, Court Street Children’s Center from both Court Street and Genesee Street and Summer Fun Camp at Lourdes.

Building a Geodesic Dome

John Daley in ArtReach classroom

Six teaching artists designed and facilitated projects that had to be completed in just two short days. Linda Evans created Cat Paintings influenced by Laurel Burch; Tina Betz had students designing their own decorative arts work with Museum Mosaic Pillow Cases; John Daley discussed museum portraits and created Masks in Art with the students; Shannon Stockbridge, inspired by Buckminster Fuller, facilitated the students in a group project creating their own Geodesic Dome; Pam Lynch used the museum’s Romare Bearden’s 1971 piece Before the Dark as inspiration for her Colorful Collage project and Colleen Luczak made connections to Japanese design principals in her project titled Notan: Positive and Negative Designs.

Tina Betz explaining ArtReach installation
On top of all of that the each child participated in a museum tour conducted by a museum docent and gallery games with the student interns.	Shannon Stockbridge showing Alexander Calder's, Three Arches, to the students
It takes many people to help run this program and I would like to thank our interns, Kelsey Brow, Shannon Stockbirdge, Alma Zygmunt, Tuacia Nelson, Queennysia Riggsbee and Khaleela Zaman for their many hours of friendly support and dedication to make sure each child had a positive experience.	ArtReach Interns
One last note, while an installation was in progress a museum visitor popped their head inside the gallery and said, “So this is where the real art is happening!” I may be bias but I have to agree, it was real art and real fun with real smiles. Thank you to everyone involved.	Classroom collage work