On a snowy afternoon in the art room at Treasure Mountain International Middle School, young artists crouch over large sheets of paper islands on the linoleum floor. They are carefully decorating with cut cloth and paint within the outlines of their bodies on the page. The assignment is to create a mixed-media portrait of a super-hero in their own image.
Katie Colton, 15, crafts a glamorous vampire with black and red feathers in her hair, the kind she likes to read about in books. Whitney Jones, 14, and Nicole Fraleigh compose their ideal animal-loving Hollywood superstar with glittered hair and pink bows. Jones, who has just wrapped up a chorus role in the school’s production of “Grease” says she hopes to take acting more seriously in the future and Fraleigh reveals she already has plans to begin a kennel in Idaho with a friend.
Art therapist Jennifer Steinwurtzel assigned the project as part Arts-Teens, a more mature version of the after-school youth program Arts-Kids for children 8 to 12 years. The program teams up kids with artists like Steinwurtzel each fall and spring for 10 weeks for about two hours each week.
“I’m a big mixed-media artist myself, and I thought it would be a good idea for the kids to take aspects of themselves and put them on paper,” she explains. “It allows them to pick out different things that they want to work on or highlight that they’re proud of. I also like the idea of making a superhero or character trait you’d want to have because it lets them explore what they would want in fantasy so that it becomes a little more real.”
Steinwurtzel shares leadership of the group with Kathy Meyer, the Arts-Teens facilitator, a Park City counselor who has been with some of the students in the group for three years.
“I love Arts-Kids because it helps kids to express themselves through arts and we’ve found this little group that works together,” she says. “A lot of the kids in this group might not be in competitive sports or doing other extra curricular activities, some do have socialization skills they’re working on and here they’ve found a place where they’re supported.”
Over the years, Meyer says she has noticed a lot of confidence and self-esteem, develop within the group. Many begin to get involved with other activities.
“It just seems Arts-Kids and Arts-Teens has a really positive impact on kids in the community,” she says. “I see kids really stick together, eating lunch, becoming friends it’s something that can be hard to find in a big school like this and something they might not have found if they hadn’t joined Arts-Kids.”
The upcoming March 29th benefit for Arts-Kids, “Paint the Town,” supports 11 after-school programs at all 10 elementary and middle schools throughout Summit County. It will also help to support the upcoming public art project later this spring that Arts-Kids has waited two years to complete with artist and illustrator Bob Commander: a bus shelter featuring a bus headed to Arts-Kids, with wooden cut-outs of kids traveling in its seats and a dog running against the wheel painted by students all from North and South Summit and Park City schools.
The 5th annual event at the Kimball Art Center is the nonprofit’s largest benefit each year. In addition to food, music by the Park City High School Jazz Ensemble and a live and silent auction, “Paint the Town” will showcase five artists creating their work live including Paul Jacobowski, Felix Saez, Bill Kranstover, Heather Lauren, and David Maestas, many of whom have volunteered to lead Arts-Kids groups.
Pat Drewry-Sanger, executive director and founder of Arts-Kids, founded the program nine years ago. She modeled the Summit County nonprofit after an initiative she started with urban youths in Virginia, where she saw a need to stimulate emotional development through creativity and community. “In all communities, all over the world, people watch screens so much,” she says. “They don’t know about community and there are many children, especially those with learning abilities, who need to learn interactively and learn how to listen to each other and develop empathy with people of different backgrounds. We’re living in a global society today and we need to understand each other.”
The official mission statement of Arts-Kids is “empowering youth through the expressive arts; connecting through creativity.” The prototypical structure of each class begins with kids sitting in a circle, sharing and listing each other’s “highs” for the week, “lows” for the week and their “intention for the day,” before activities. The class then ends with a circle, with each participant sharing their thoughts about what happened during the class.
Drewry-Sanger says many of the children who begin Arts-Kids in 3rd grade and continue through their freshman year in high school might have slipped through the cracks otherwise, and gotten lost. Arts-Kids offer the alternative to a team or club, where kids find support and feel a sense of belonging, she says.
“Sometimes there’s such an emphasis on sports here that developmentally, kids become unbalanced,” Drewry-Sanger observes. “We’re not just an at-risk program. All children can benefit from expressing themselves in alternative ways. Children communicate more effectively through art.”
There are many kids within the Arts-Kids program return year after year, as long as its offered, according to Sanger. One of the most satisfying things to watch, she says, is that the kids are owning the group as their community, a place where they can be themselves.
“What I’m seeing now is that people are beginning to know who we are,” she says. “It’s taken a long time.”
Support Arts-Kids at the 5th annual Paint The Town celebration
Arts-Kids, Summit County’s youth development program, will host “Paint the Town” on Saturday, March 29 at the Kimball Art Center from 6-10 pm. Support the Summit County youth during this annual evening of art and fun. Hear the sounds of Big Time Jazz and enjoy the gourmet food of Done to Your Taste. Bid on great silent auction items and see Utah artists working on art to be included in the live auction. Don’t miss this unique and colorful party! Tickets are $65 per person and $120 per couple. For reservations, please call (435) 615-7878. To learn more about Arts-Kids log on to the nonprofit’s Web site at arts-kids.org.