For eight children from the Humboldt area, taking art classes this summer was a unique experience.
It was also a unique experience for the two university art students who taught the classes. Taylor Crozon and Annah Gullacher have known each other for years through the Humboldt Aquatic Centre, where they work together as lifeguards.
"We knew that we're both in art school," Gullacher said, "And we knew kids in town that are really interested in art, as well. So that's how we got to thinking about it."
While both Crozon and Gullacher are away at university during the school year, they both end up back in Humboldt for the summer. This year, the idea of putting together a series of art classes for children appealed to them.
"Since we're not in the same branch of fine arts, we each took care of the area where our strengths lie," she told the Journal. "Taylor's really good at drawing and the new media stuff, so she took care of that. And then I did the sculpture, that's my area."
Their classes involved having the children use a different medium every time they met, giving them an opportunity to experiment with a wide range of techniques.
"For the kids, I think they got a lot of new tools to use, new ideas and ways of working," said Gullacher. "And I think they learned how to look and work with what they see, as well as with what their imaginations tell them to do."
The idea was to give the children an open field for expression within a certain amount of structure, depending on the medium. To counter-balance the structure, the students encouraged the children to keep a sketchbook where they could sketch away to their hearts' content.
"We don't want the kids to lose any of their creativity because that's a wonderful, beautiful thing to have that rich imagination," Gullacher added. "So they could do whatever they wanted every single day in that sketch book. And then in class, we would focus on what we were teaching."
The two art students decided to take an approach that would show the children the process a working artist goes through, from conception of a piece to its exhibition in a gallery. For example, when the children went out to Gullacher's farm for a day to work on landscape installation, they had to come prepared.
"They had a little homework assignment," she said. "They had to look up Andy Goldsworthy, who is an artist who goes out on walks and finds things, and is just an amazing sculptor. Then they had to come to the farm prepared to do a landscape installation."
Gullacher also showed the children a technique sculptors use to reproduce a piece using a different material. The French sculptor Rodin would use this technique on a larger scale to produce his life-size bronze statues.
"First they made something with the clay," she said. "Then we made moulds of the pieces they had sculpted and cast it in plaster, so they had a copy."
The final bouquet was organizing an exhibit at the Humboldt and District Museum and Gallery for 10 days at the end of August.
"We wanted them to get the experience of the working artist - so it included having to choose which of their pieces they wanted to display, because we made many, many, many pieces," Gullacher explained.
"They could only choose two - one two-dimensional and one three-dimensional work-and then Taylor and I chose one of their works as well. Then they got to clean it up for the exhibit."
From start to finish, the summer art classes were a great experience Gullacher says, and one where both teachers and students learned a lot.
"It was totally relevant for me, because I am in Arts Education right now, and it also helps Taylor as well," said Gullacher. "We were really trying to open up new ways of thinking rather than saying to the kids draw this cat that looks just like this. So we hope we succeeded in that. It was a fantastic experience."
