Exhibits
January 7, 2014
Goings On
January 7, 2014
A lack of funding for art education in public schools reduces the number of children who can be acquainted with the arts and hastens the importance of community outreach programs that teach school-aged children techniques that will allow them to explore their own creative impulses.
The Terrebonne Fine Arts Guild does just that this month with six two-hour sessions of art classes scheduled, offering supplies and instruction at no cost to school-age participants.
“You want them to learn to appreciate art,” said Karen Kelly, the guild’s treasurer. “I think that art should be a mandatory class in schools. You start learning how to see and appreciate what’s out there. They can’t do anything wrong, more or less. It gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling, and it helps them in their learning.”
The program, ongoing for at least 20 years, is set for three consecutive Saturdays, beginning Jan. 11, Kelly said. Classes are open to children in first through 12th grade, with each child allowed to preregister for one class. After the first day, children can sign up for a second class if space permits.
Children are split into two age groups, with one taking instruction in the morning and the other in the afternoon, Kelly said. Organizers hope to have at least 15 students for each session.
Classes offered are clay (taught by Kelly), collage (Karen Bordok), acrylic (Jerri Richard and Lydia Champagne) and watercolor (Otis Dobson). Each instructor has experience in his or her respective medium, and each is assisted by another adult.
Most of the time, the instructors start with basic elements of the media and branch out as time and skill allow. Kelly’s course, for example, begins with pinch pots but often branches into molding ducks, cats, dogs or horses, she said.
The free children’s art classes are only one element of the guild’s youth outreach programs. In March, the annual parishwide School Art Show returns. Blue-ribbon winners from each school are invited hone their talents via free classes in June.
Every summer TFAG also offers summer classes, a program Bordok chairs. She wanted to encourage the community to stay abreast of the program, saying new mediums and techniques would be introduced in 2014.
“I am trying to encourage more creative ways to allow the children to express themselves in art,” she said.
For more information, visit www.tfag.org or call (985) 851-2198. The guild is located at 630 Belanger St., Houma.
“Hopefully, they’ll pick up an appreciation about the arts,” Kelly said. “This is something that they can’t do wrong. There are no rules in art. Hopefully, it’s showing them that there is something they can excel in. They’re not graded, they’re not competing with their neighbor.”
– editor@gumboguide.com
Children are taught techniques in acrylic paint, clay, collaging and watercolors at the Terrebonne Fine Arts Guild free art classes, open to students in first through 12th grade. It is one of a few TFAG outreach programs extended to the local youth.
