6-week camp draws kids into the art of creativity

— Twenty-five young artists hovered over puddles of colors and piles of beads spotting brown butcher paper-covered tables last week. They painted stripes and dots and glued sparkles and feathers on the clay figurines they built this summer at an art camp at the THEA Foundation in the Argenta district of downtown North Little Rock.

That artwork - which includes works in charcoal, ceramic, watercolor and photography - can be seen Aug. 5-6 and Aug. 9-12 at the THEA Summer Art Program Exhibition, 401 Main St., North Little Rock. The exhibit is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

During the six-week art program, the children, ages 8 to 18, fine-tuned their artistic creations and fine-tunedtheir self-confidence.

“Seeing these kids from the first day to now has been a complete 360,” said Sarah Mattingly, charcoal instructorand director of the summer art program. “When they got here, they were very quiet,really reserved, and they’ve just opened up, and you can see it in the work and in the creativity they have expressed in the class.”

To create the free program, which concluded Thursday, the foundation worked with Butterfly Community Ministries to engage children from North Little Rock’s Levy neighborhood in new forms of artistic expression.

Butterfly Community Ministries, a Christian nonprofit, serves people in need in the North Pulaski County area by providing free programs, like the summer art camp. Mary Hoey, executive director of Butterfly Community Ministries, suggested children to participate in the program.

“We approached [THEA] about getting these kids in here, kids who would really need the art classes, and since they’re provided at no costs, kids who would get the greatest benefit out of it,” Mattingly said.

The summer arts program has its roots in a ceramics class the THEA Foundation held last year with the Salvation Army to provide a clay class to students.

“It wasn’t quite the wellrounded experience that this year has offered, and we’re hoping to really grow this program next year,” Mattingly said.

Though Mattingly said each activity was well-received by students, 9-yearold Emilio Aranda said he enjoyed the photography project the most.

“We got glow sticks and played with them and we took pictures while we were waving the glow sticks,” Emilio said.

Emilio has always wanted to be an artist and lovedlearning about different types of art.

“It makes me feel like I can express my feelings,” Emilio said.

Each young artist was encouraged to write a statement to explain how art makes him feel and what inspires him to create art.

“In the art world if you had a solo exhibition, you would have your artist statement about your exhibition,” Mattingly said. “These students have written what art means to them at this time in their lives.”

Mattingly said in their artist statements, the students said that creating art makes them feel “proud,” “confident” and “happy.”

The THEA Foundation, supported mainly by donations and grants, funded the program by providing most of the “consumable” materials, Mattingly said. The program’s instructors areall volunteers, and Claytime Pottery Studio donated the clay. Bedford Camera & Video loaned program instructors 15 digital cameras for the photography lesson.

Ana Maria Saldana, mother of three girls who participated in the program, said it provided safe and creative activities for her daughters to do during the summer.

“All three of them want to be artists, and now they’re thinking about studying art in the future,” Saldana said. “If it were up to them, they would continue coming all summer long, but this is the last week of classes.”

Family, Pages 33 on 07/28/2010

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