me arts ed

“National Youth Art Month emphasizes the value of art education and encourages support for school art programs”.  Stacy Rodenberger

This post is contributed by Manon Lewis, YAM chairperson for Maine Art Education Association.

Saturday, March 5^th marked another fabulous “Youth Art Month” opening reception at the Portland Museum of Art.  Well over 700 parents, friends, art teachers, and student artists were in attendance!  It marked M.A.E.A.’s 17^th year of having student artwork hanging in such a prominent and prestigious environment.  The audience at each of the two presentations were engaged by M.A.E.A.’s “Art Educator of the Year”, 37 year veteran, from Lake Region Middle School in Naples, Molly Mains.  Molly described her introduction to the art making process and it’s importance in her life as well as the life of her students.  Lauren Lessing, the Mirken Curator of Education at the Colby College Museum of Art was presented this year’s Maine Art Advocate of the Year” award by M.A.E.A.’s president Sandy Brennan. M.A.E.A. was pleased to additionally recognize, both Dana Baldwin for her NAEA Award as National Art Museum Educator of the Year and Stacy Rodenberger as the NAEA Eastern Region Art Museum Educator of the Year.

Stacy Rodenberger, Coordinator of School Programs at the museum, was happy to announce that artwork from more than 120 students was on display this year.  The artwork represents students and school art programs that are throughout the state from elementary to high school.

Students were given their opportunity for applause and congratulations, in a presentation of participatory certificates and pins in front of a dramatic slide show backdrop of student artwork from this year’s Y.A.M. show! Pins and certificates were awarded to our states student artist’s by Tory Tyler-Millar and Manon Lewis; co-coordinators of Youth Art Month.

The student artwork for the “Youth Art Month” show will be on display at the museum until April 3.

The pick up dates for the Youth Art Month Show are on Friday, April 8^th from 4 to 7 p.m. and Saturday, April 9^th from 10a.m. to 1 p.m.  Pick up is at the loading dock of the Portland Museum of Art, 99 Spring Street, Portland, ME.

R.A.M.P.s work continues

Recently I heard from Louis Philippe with an update on R.A.M.P. Reindeer’s Alternative Music Program is a performing arts education outreach that outlines and analyzes the skills and experiences of modern-day performing artists, combines them with state and local learning objectives, and serves it all up in a creative hands-on curriculum by which students are not only empowered but are also able to earn academic credit.

They are in the middle of raising $145,000 in order to hire professional curriculum writers to be able to hire and train a crew of young people to create, film and produce the curriculum in a 60-DVD set.  This will also pay for the professional filming equipment as well as the computers and software to edit and finalize a pro product.

This past November, they launched the Off-Ramp competition to bring awareness to the goals, and to raise part of their funds needed for the program. The Off-Ramp is a six-month journey for high school bands who challenged with music-industry tasks (Songwriting, The Recording Studio Experience, Marketing, Live Event Production and Music Video Production….the very same five chapters of the planned curriculum).

You can follow all the progress of the competition by visiting the website of our sponsor, Current Publishing, at:
www.keepmecurrent.com/arts_and_entertainment/off-ramp

They have hired an experienced curriculum designer from Connecticut who has successfully designed curricula for various 21st Century programs, after-school programs, museums and businesses, who is ready to design the R.A.M.P. curriculum.

To that end, they have created a full-color brochure that describes R.A.M.P., outlines the curriculum and invites people to support the cause with a tax-deductible contribution (for which they offer various level of support). Here is the link to the R.A.M.P. page on our website.  Feel free to check out the brochure by clicking the “download here” link:
http://reindeergroup.org/RAMP.html

With the Off-Ramp FINALE right around the corner—Saturday, May 7—you’re invited to attend the show. It is being held at the beautiful Westbrook Performing Arts Center, starting at 7 PM. All nine bands will play 3 songs including their version of “I Scream At Walls” which they wrote for their songwriting task. An Awards Ceremony will follow to acknowledge the fine work of all the bands. And of course they will be promoting the curriculum goal.