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INTRODUCTION top Studio 7 Arts 's mission is "to enrich lives with creativity and fun!". Studio 7 Arts is especially committed to inspire youth to find their full potential through the arts, culture and creativity. Daily you read or hear about children in trouble. Sociological research and data indicates that youth growing up today face many great challenges in their daily life. They face pressure from their peers, parents, and society. Often these children come from broken homes with only a single parent for guidance and support. Far too many children find all the mixed messages overwhelming, confusing, and threatening. Often this discord within themselves leads to hasty and harmful decisions that can affect them for life. Without the proper tools, we are never ready for the emotional storms that generate change within us. A proven productive choice of action is to express powerful emotions through the arts. We use art forms as a vehicle to inspire children to express themselves creatively, which invites them into widening their lens of perception and multiplying positive choices of how to be in the world. Furthermore, we live in a world our grandparents could never have dreamed of. "Home" is no longer defined by geographic borders. Instead, our knowledge, culture, and job market is shared with the rest of the world. We need to prepare our children for today's challenges. We need an educated and resourceful work force, skilled in working creatively and collaboratively. Ideally, citizens across the Country must be willing to act to improve their community. Successful involvement in society and the global, information economy requires art, both in the schools and the community. The plan is simple. By offering a quality ARTS Studio program for children, necessary tools will become available to inspire these creative minds. By additionally giving school children the opportunity to work together in designing a piece of public art that represents their city, they will become innovative thinkers and active participants in society. Our local community then becomes more appealing to investors, improving the local economy. This plan improves the quality of life for our citizens today and the quality of our children's minds and opportunities in the future. The need for creative minds is growing each day. To discover and create innovative solutions, it takes truly creative people. These people are not just educated in math and the sciences; they are schooled in the arts, able to think outside of the box, and do what their predecessors could not. It is through inspiring imaginations, creativity and educating our youth in the arts that we can foster truly creative and innovative minds. The key is to integrate art into children's lives when they are most open to assimilating these creative tools. Studio 7 Arts has made one of their primary priorities to identify ways in which to reach the youth in our community, to offer them powerful creative opportunities to explore the arts, to participate in meaningful activities with their peers, and expand their horizons in ways that will provide life long learning and growth opportunities. The sooner children are introduced to arts and culture, the sooner they will develop these healthy life tools. Studio 7 Arts believes that all children need ample opportunity for personal creative expression - yet too many kids do not have access. A child also needs many advocates: parents, teachers, family, friends, self, counselors...the community. Opportunities for collaborative experiences and personal expression must be there for children. Creativity leads to personal growth, empowerment, creative problem solving, self-esteem, honoring and building inner strength, self-nurturing, personal identity, self-motivation, untapped capabilities and personal inspiration. An ARTS Studio program has been developed to meet this mission for the youth of our community. These workshops, with an ongoing mixed media quality focus and various arts opportunities, represent unique and valuable opportunities for our youth. Through this unique program, school age children that would benefit from exposure to a wide variety of creative experiences, can "spread their wings" in a safe and relaxed environment where they can explore creativity, culture, imagination, self-expression, realize hidden talents, and increase their potential to grow into healthy productive adults. top DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM top Studio 7 Arts's Kids ARTS Studio is designed with Multi-Media Art Workshops including visual arts, film/video/digital photography, culinary and performing arts. The ARTS Studio is designed to engage and inspire children on many levels and includes cultural aspects that compliment the many art forms. top GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE KIDS ARTS STUDIOtop • To provide a safe environment, and creative tools to inspire children's imaginative minds, help them "spread their wings", explore creative talent, imagination, realize hidden talents, and begin to discover their full potential through the arts, culture and creativity. next column: Benefits of the Arts |
BENEFITS OF THE ARTS IN CHILDRENS LIVES, COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY top Arts education has been shown to positively affect academic achievement in every discipline. Drawing improves writing skills, music improves memory, and drama makes history more vivid (Murfee, 1995). The arts enable students to access their multiple intelligences (Deasy, 2002), explaining why students involved in the arts score nearly 20% higher than average on academic tests (Catterall, Champleau, & Iwanaga, 1999). These improvements are particularly pronounced among lower income students and disadvantaged learners (Ingram & Seashore, 2003). Given all of the benefits of arts education, it is appalling that public school systems continue to cut funding for the arts. Enrollment in music programs is decreasing due to the elimination of classes and funding focused on increasing test scores (Moran, 2004). We need to realize that test scores will increase by adding arts programs not eliminating them. Arts education not only improves learning in core subject areas, it fosters creativity and deepens exploration of complex issues (Murfee, 1995). For example, Weber (1992) examined the way inventors in engineering produced new solutions, and found they relied on the same visual imaging skills acquired through artistic design. It is through the ability to approach problems from all angles that arts education will foster the innovative minds needed in our rapidly changing world. In addition to increasing intellectual curiosity and capability, arts education can help children become more active citizens. Analysts have reported concern for the declining number of youth voting or showing interest in civic engagement (Democracy Lab, 2006). However, frequent participants in the arts tend to engage more often in civic and political activity ( Walker , Scott-Melnyk, & Sherwood, 2002). Arts education can clearly lead to more creative and active children in the future, as well as alter the existing environment in which these children live. In an attempt to become more attractive in the rapidly changing world, many cities have also been using public art to create a unified identity recognizable to investors. However, most cities have a diverse population and complex history, making the creation of a unified identity difficult (Rodriguez, 1998). Allowing school children to work together to create a cohesive image not only ensures it will represent the city's future, but that these desirable and innovative thinkers will not feel alienated in a global society. Instead, they will identify themselves as local community members, and work toward the city's and the region's improvement. The contributions these young people could make at only 15 or 16 years of age or even younger would truly improve the local community on many levels. Public art, particularly art which represents the uniqueness of Traverse City and the surrounding area, will create an image and attractiveness that draws both investors and other creative minds to the city (Roberts & Marsh, 1995). Displaying a unified image of Traverse City through public art will create a gathering place, beneficial to both commerce and community. Consumption of the arts will help to generate other economic activity by attracting into an area people who then use other non-cultural facilities, including restaurants, cafes, clubs, hotels or transportation. Public art acts therefore as a catalyst for both community activity and investment (Wansborough & Mageean, 2000). Sociological studies have shown that creative processes involved in the making of art are a healing and life-enhancing opportunity. The creative processes involved in art provide the opportunity to explore and experiment with new ideas and ways of being, working from one's own imagination, taking risks, breaking boundaries, pushing the limits, and inventing new ideas. Art leads to insight, and self-awareness as well as improving the connectedness and communication between children. Creativity can provide a means of expression for that which has no words, or is not yet understood. Through art may come a kind of nourishment, healing insights, and a fresh respect for our creativity. Through arts and cultural experiences, children can work on their relationships, explore dreams, or seek renewed meaning and creativity in their lives, while becoming the problem solvers of the future. top PROGRAM METHODS topStudio 7 Arts's Kids ARTS Studio will take place Mondays through Fridays from 4-5:15 PM ongoing throughout the school year, but in the form of 4-5 week workshops. No specific skills are required and in fact everyone is encouraged that they, too, can create meaningful art and become "creative" community members. The outline of the curriculum will be inspired by many hands-on visual arts experiences and a daily special medium focus. Guests from our local Interlochen Arts Academy will share their experience and talents in a workshop setting. Art activities will be directive and non-directive depending on the composition and needs of the group on any given day. This program utilizes arts and culture models and will be run by dedicated experienced facilitators. The underlying framework supporting this program is the concept that arts and culture experiences fosters positive personal and social development and is a significant tool used in the fulfillment of human potential. The Kids ARTS Studio offers children from grades 1-6 the opportunity to come together in a relaxed and non-threatening environment. Sessions will include up to 10-15 children from grades 1-3 and up to 10-15 children from grades 4-6 for each workshop experience. These years are important times in a child's life to learn to express themselves in creative and constructive ways. The ARTS Studio program will offer an environment conducive to this positive growth and direction. top CONCLUSION top Sociological research and data indicate that children growing up today face many insurmountable challenges in their daily life. However, with the proper opportunities and tools, they can reach their potential and become who they are meant to be. Our Kids ARTS Studio is an exciting opportunity for children from grades 1 through 6 to learn to express themselves in creatively and constructively. The ARTS Studio offers an environment conducive to this positive growth and direction. It allows these children to utilize their own innate creativity to bring about change and positive growth in their own lives, the community and ultimately, in society. Our children represent our future. Therefore, it is they who should be given these opportunities to flourish and to help create Traverse City 's image for the decades to come. By incorporating arts opportunities into the community, and allowing students to create a unified image of the local area portrayed through public art, standardized test scores will increase, drop out rates will decrease, and the next generation will be more creative and innovative thinkers. Children who are educated in the arts and encouraged to become active members of their community will likely be more active participants in later years as well. By working collaboratively, these children will adopt the skills needed to succeed in all future endeavors within our global community. Enacting this plan will not only benefit our future, it will improve the city's appeal to citizens and potential investors today, ensuring we have the creative talent to succeed tomorrow. top References top |
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