Center for the Visual Arts unveils summer camp exhibit, student art sale

After weeks of excitement, experimentation and discovery of potential through mistakes, the youth in the Center for the Visual Arts summer programs have brought their artistic risks to life under the mood lighting of the CVA gallery. Their creations are featured alongside an expansive web stretched across the northern wall in the Common Threads exhibit, an opportunity for gallery-goers to give their own ideas a spin.

“This summer … we had a little bit more time in our galleries than we thought that we would. So, we decided to take advantage of that, and we’ve, for the last few years, really been wanting to incorporate a collaborative show featuring some of our youth camp work, and so we thought ‘Now’s the time,’” executive director Mara Mullen said. “We also really wanted to continue to engage the public and bring them in through our doors for as long as we could this summer, so we constructed a community weaving project, and then collaboration really became the overall kind of [overarching] theme between the youth camp work which is largely collaborative, and then the collaborative weaving.”

The youth camps feature four different opportunities for students to get their hands dirty — the Clay Camp, Fiber Camp, Mini-Camps, and ARTventure Camp — with each program targeted towards youth anywhere between the age of 6 and 14. These programs also lay the ground for kids to experiment with new art mediums.

“We made 3D dioramas. We made popcorn clay movie things to hold popcorn and we made Shrinky Dinks! … I feel like I’m happy, it’s creative.” 8-year-old Jude Gallagher said. “My favorite things to make are probably Shrinky Dinks because those are really fun, and then I really like to just play with clay and stuff.”

Center for the Visuals Arts executive director Mara Mullen and education program manager Matthew Bergs stand at the entrance of the Common Threads exhibit.

Photo by Nate Hahn

Instructors of these different programs are the ones responsible for coming up with the fun, team-centered projects. Every Monday, the kids start their ideas from scratch, and build them up together every day until the Thursday of every week.

“It’s required that [instructors] include at least one collaborative project in every camp, just because we feel that team building is so important for the kiddos, and they really love it as well,” Mullen said.

“It also ramps up to the art sale that the students set up,” education program manager Matthew Bergs added. “So Monday through Wednesday, they do some regular projects … and then some of them are ones that they are able to sell if they want to on Thursday.”

These art sales, along with the Common Threads exhibit, are examples of a larger effort of the CVA: to introduce the youth’s talents to a larger audience while instilling a lifelong belief in art in the young’uns.

“Along with collaboration, we like to teach entrepreneurship in the arts. We talk about what goes into pricing and selling and presenting artwork, and they have a really, really great time with that,” Mullen said. “Usually the students will break off and you’ll have your set of marketers who make all the signage and try to get the people to come in off the street, and then you’ll have your students who want to handle the cashbox … Because the sale is held out back in our courtyard, I’ll be in the building and I’ll hear all this honking, and I’ll be like ‘What’s going on?’ and it’s the kids who are holding up signs like ‘Honk for art!’”

These honks that rattle through the finely aged CVA building also signify the closing of one artistic idea, and the beginning of another as the week comes to a close. It’s the instructors who get to witness the weekly growth of every student from the first brush stroke until the last dab of paint dries.

“There’s many rewards, but just seeing them light up and create with total freedom,” Mullen said. “I mean to an extent we set the parameters for each project, but within those parameters they’re really able to exercise all of those creative decision-making skills. I think that leads to confidence. I think that’s really cool.”

But the kids’ creations and community yarn web are up for a limited time. The Common Threads exhibit will be in the CVA gallery until Aug. 8.

“If you want to see some really great artwork created by local youth, come and stop by … I’d also say it’s an opportunity to be showcased in the gallery by being a participant, because with Common Threads, one of the biggest elements ... is the community wall where [the public] can add fabric and yarn, so you actually get to be a part of the exhibit. It’s a little different from some of the shows we’ve done,” Bergs said.

More details about summer programs and the Common Threads exhibit can be found at cvawausau.org.