My favorite Muppet – Beaker – demonstrating what my face will probably look like when the campers get here!

This is the last workday before our campers arrive!  It’s pretty quiet in the museum and office today, so I’m relishing the quiet and enjoying the chance to sit down and have a moment of peace, especially after the wild (and wet!) weekend at the Columbus Arts Festival, where we ended up making art with over 600 children and their families.  It’s nice to have a little bit of a break between the two busy events. Teen Summer workshops begin next week with classes what experiment with metals, draw cartoons, and create their own Muppets. I’m especially excited about the Muppets – I hope I can sneak into a few classes and make my own!  Campers sign up for half-day or whole-day classes, and there is room for 12 campers in each class, which means there be 36 tweens and teens invading the museum next week.

Although any teen can take these classes, they are a great opportunity for the artistically inclined to really dig into their interests, work with talented craftspeople who make their living creating and teaching, and get exposure to new techniques and hone the skills they already have.  And especially with these older students, it’s a great chance to show them that the arts can be a meaningful career choice, whether as a practicing artist or in an arts and culture non-profit organization, not just a hobby.  In the United States, the arts support 4.1 million jobs and create $135.2 billion in economic activity each year (Americans for the Arts).  Additionally, research has shown that participation in the arts and arts education in schools makes a measurable difference in student performance and learning, including higher SAT scores, better attendance and retention rates, and stronger reasoning and problem-solving skills.  I am the Vice-President of Central Ohio Student Advocates for the Arts (COSAA) at Ohio State, and this winter I had the chance to go to Washington, DC to participate in National Arts Advocacy Day and speak to Ohio legislators on Capitol Hill about the value of the arts and ask them to support funding for arts education and the National Endowment for the Arts. I feel passionately about my role as an arts advocate, and what is even more important than talking about the arts is doing them, and supporting other artists…especially young artists!  That’s why I love the classes and camps at the Ohio Craft Museum and am so honored to be a part of the important work they do.

This week, we finished prepping our 3 classroom spaces with all the supplies the teachers and classes will need for the week, putting up all the necessary signs and directions, and finalizing the schedules. But, I also got to work on my own art skills as well!  Loyal blog-readers will see all my projects in the weeks to come, but here’s a quick preview of some of the projects I am testing – punched tin, several (failed) attempts at making tie-dye with Sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol, and painted picture frames.

Samples of punched tin wall art (left), a punched tin lantern (middle), and a punched tin mobile (right)

When you spray rubbing alcohol on Sharpie markers, it makes a cool tie-dye effect…supposedly. Foil test fail (left), paper test fail (middle), fabric test SUCCESS (right)!

Painted picture frame for pet-project week. I chose my pet hedgehog as my model 🙂