The Georgia Museum of Art has partnered with W.R. Coile Middle School(opens in new tab)’s 21st Century Community Learning Center(opens in new tab) to create art and talk about artists in the Georgia Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The 21st Century Community Learning Center is a program that provides after-school academic enrichment activities for high-poverty and low-performing schools. The art club is one of these opportunities that help students gain greater understanding of the arts. Members of the Athens Chapter of The Links, Incorporated(opens in new tab), and Sage Kincaid, the museum’s associate curator of education, have organized these club meetings. During the 2021 – 22 school year, the art club has met 14 times. The next school year they plan to gather every other week to continue the artistic enrichment of students.
Around 7 to 12 students attend each meeting. During art club meetings, students have the opportunity to learn about works from the museum’s collection then create their own art. Students discuss the artists’ history and their works. Then they use what they learned as inspiration for their own art. These activities included learning photography and creating collages based on artist Radcliffe Bailey’s multimedia work. Students also made punched tin animals inspired by artist Ronald Lockett’s work(opens in new tab) and created watercolor-tinted cyanotypes, a photographic technique that creates blueprints, based on Amalia Amaki’s and Maria-Lana Queen’s works.
The goal of the program is not only to enrich students’ knowledge of art, but to provide them with fun activities to do after school. The art club is a way for students to de-stress with their classmates in an educational way. Students learn about the process of art making, from forming ideas using what they read about the artist to titling completed art projects and writing artists’ statements. These activities develop students’ general literacy and writing skills as well as their artistic ones. They also develop their visual literacy skills through exploring new art materials. Art becomes a medium for students to build their confidence in their ability to create.
Kincaid says, “It’s a great program to be a part of. I’m continuously amazed by how creative and thoughtful the students are, and I’m glad that we can bring the museum to them for an after-school get-together.”
By Danielle Davis
