me arts ed

Workshop: Community Connections: Nuts, Bolts And Freebies – by Brooke Holland

Gail Scott, conference evaluator and Susan Potters, workshop facilitator

Art enriches our lives and helps us better understand the world we live in.  The question is: How do we bring more art to our schools, especially in this economy? Getting art in our schools without paying or with paying little might be easier than we think. The school’s focus should be on connections. Our connections from school can be initiated by teachers, parents or volunteers. They, in turn need to connect with people in our community such as artists, PTO, art organizations, grants and business sponsors.

First the school needs to rally their art advocates, and the best people to reach are the parents. They play a vital role and can help organize meetings, research and design grant proposals, find artists and check on their quality, raise money, advertise and document the event. Parents are important and can make arts in the school take priority.

Who should you contact to get the arts in our schools? Try the artists themselves. As a start, speak to the universities and ask them if they have some young artists who can share their work; parents or grandparents who are artists and local artists might be willing to come in and talk with classes. This gets the artist’s work and name out and you can further help the artist by taking a picture and sending a press release to the paper. You may also try an exchange of services by providing a place to show their art work or  providing a facility where the artist can do their work.

High School students can be inspiring to the younger students with their talents and often they can come at the end of their school day to share their work, performance or gift with the elementary schools.

Art organizations such as museums, non-profits, theaters, symphonies and bands are often supported by grants and are looking to partner up with schools in order to fill their community responsibility. We just need to let them know that we are here and would love to work with them.

There are many creative, low cost ways to bring arts to the schools. We need to build a strong community of art advocates, define the need of art in the school and seek out those opportunities.

Workshop: Want to Blog? – by Cathy Adelman

With David Paterson’s knowledgeable guidance and good humor (despite intermittent internet connectivity!), some participants were able to accomplish setting up a blog.

Other’s, myself included, got started.  I have chosen this route instead of a website to represent the K-4 Art Program in MSAD #55.  Most of the participants viewed the blog format as a flexible and manageable tool to communicate to parents and the school community about their Art programs.

David has a blog called Stories From Home which includes his outstanding photographs.

Danette Kerrigan, who teaches visual arts at Sacopee Valley Middle School, attended the session and has her own blog called The Fabulous Art Room that is just getting underway.

Rush Brown, who teaches visual arts in Sanford, attended the session and has a blog he has just started called Rush Brown.

David Patterson assisting a Barbara blogger