By: Deborah Johnson Wood
All winter, 18 local art students and 15 local artists worked together in student/mentor relationships, exploring the art and entrepreneurial opportunities in West Michigan. The one-on-one mentorships are the winter program of ArtWorks, an arts related job-training program created and run for youth ages 14 to 21 by the Grand Rapids-based Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts.
“We pair the students and artists according to interests and personalities,” says Becca Schaub, program manager. “The students spend two hours a week with their artist at their studio and learn that artist’s techniques, how much time it takes to create each work, where to sell it, how the work is produced and how to be an entrepreneur in Grand Rapids.”
This year’s enrollment is the largest since the program began four years ago, with mentors offering expertise across a variety of media, including oil painting, woodcuts, printmaking, metalsmithing, collage, beadwork, torn paper collage, welding, pottery, photography and ceramics.
Students spend another three hours a week at UICA working on individual projects using the skills they learn from their artist, with the goals of creating works for their portfolio and for a silent auction fundraiser, Art Around Town, that finances the program.
“The students work with their artist to select one to three pieces to auction, and all of the money earned goes back into the program,” Schaub says. “The mentors also provide some of their work for the auction; a percentage of the money goes to the program, the rest goes to the artists.”
Kindel Furniture, 100 Garden SE, will host this year’s Art Around Town auction on Friday, May 2 from 5:30 to 8:30.
Source: Becca Schaub, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts; Daniel Schoonmaker, Alexander Marketing
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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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