Our education department has been busy both on-site and off-site, filling our community with creative opportunities for its young members. The Museum's newest staff member, Tracey Roode, has been visiting area pre-schools teaching the elements of art to 3- and 4-year-
olds
- over 355 each month, at eight different preschools and day cares. So far, the children have been introduced to shape, color and space by incorporating story-time and an art project that Ms. Tracey takes to their classrooms. Over the next few months, the children will move on to pattern, line and form. It's very clear they love seeing "Ms. Tracey, the Art Lady" every month!
Ms. Arielle has taken her supplies on the road a few times as well. First stop was St. James Elementary School, where she brought materials for the students of Ms. Vanlandingham's Art Club to make their own paper. Ms. Vanlandingham, who will soon be a third-year teacher, was an Art Museum intern from Coastal Carolina University in 2012. We love seeing how our Museum has helped foster creativity in our community and continues to build strong relationships with our school systems and their hard-working teachers.
In April, our Museum participated in its third ArtMakers event, part of the annual nine-day art competition ArtFields held in Lake City, SC. During ArtMakers, participants ages 5-18 have the opportunity to select from a variety of art-based activities and create their own personal works of art, working with artists and organizations from across the State. This year, Ms. Arielle and interns traveled to Lake City with materials to promote our summer exhibition,
Feast Your Eyes: Celebrating the Food of the South
. We made prints using a variety of fruits and vegetables - teaching the kids that they could make art using everyday materials!
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Timothy Hunter
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That same month, the Museum hosted an opening reception for the
18th Annual Horry-Georgetown County High Schools Art Exhibition
. This year, we had over 300 submissions from 12 participating schools; out of those, 80 works were juried into the exhibition. A breathtaking painting titled
A Girl With Two Pearl Earrings
by Timothy Hunter of the Academy of Arts, Science & Technology won the Best in Show Award. Each year we are blown away by the talent in our area high schools, and this year was no different.
We took a break from our busy summer preparations to help make the family shelter at New Directions a little bit more cozy and welcoming by painting a tree of life in
the
children's area. Arielle also worked with a local Girl Scout troop to paint positive quotes and designs on canvases to decorate the rest of the shelter. Adding those colorful touches really makes a positive difference for all.
Now that summer has arrived, we have already welcomed lots of children ages 5-12 to tour
Feast Your Eyes
and create a project inspired by the exhibit in our S
tudio
. At our first
summer camp for 5-to-7-year-olds, participants created "ArtFul Gardens." Through a variety of activities and experiments, the children learned about the development of plant life and about the basic steps in growing their own gardens. Campers painted their own planters and sowed their own seeds - and some have already started to sprout.
We even incorporated a little
"garden yoga" to create good energy for our plants to grow strong! Another session for this camp will be offered July 11-
13.
Our 8-to-12-year-old summer campers have been working on their own stop-
motion films
bringing the foods depicted in Feast Your Eyes to life - as characters in their films. Just to name a few, their characters include President Cucumber, Collard Queen and many more!
This season we've already had groups visit us from Palmetto Preschool, Bibleway Summer Camp from Georgetown, Georgetown YMCA and Kiddie Park Day Care. Children visiting with these groups have created beautiful prints using a variety of fruits and veggies. Lots of creative projects from these little munchkins!
We're looking forward to many more visitors this summer as we celebrate the food of the South. Stop in and see us - you may be hungry when you leave!
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