The MSJC Fine Arts Gallery, California Family Life Center and Worth Visual Arts are pleased to present a.r.t.e.r.y’s (Art, Recognition, Transition, education, Reciprocating, Youth) Hinged 2016: Flight. This exhibition marks the tenth collaboration with CFLC and MSJC.
Mentoring and art are key elements to CFLC’s a.r.t.e.r.y. program. This year’s exhibit emphasizes mentoring skills, focusing on the transference of creative energy, vision and goals through art with children. a.r.t.e.r.y works with school age children (ages 6 – 13), teaching various art methods, and building a one to one relationship with older mentors (ages 18 – 22). Youth mentors realize the importance of art benefiting their choices in career paths, while bridging children to positive endeavors within their community. By exhibiting their artwork at the MSJC Fine Arts Gallery, youth are exposed to college as a more attainable path for their future and assimilate comfortably in a college atmosphere.
In Hinged 2016: Flight, the gallery walls come alive with a flock of hundreds of ceramic birds made by the a.r.t.e.r.y students. Like their maker, each bird has their own personality and character. Starting at the far end of the gallery, the flock’s starting point is the nest. The birds fly from the nest and form a poetic and playful murmuration that gracefully dips and rises as they soar through the gallery. This sculptural formation draws an analogy to the migration and life cycle of the birds and the students’ own lives; the birds representing the individual; nests the warmth and support of the past; and the flocks in flight symbolic of transition, new paths and their peers as they grow and develop together.
Also displayed in the gallery are the journals of the students. These journals are a crucial part of the a.r.t.e.r.y program. The journal entries help reveal the artists’ thoughts on the past and the present as their lives change and grow beyond their homes and their comfort zones. Flight encompasses a time and place to express oneself, while providing the freedom to let one’s thoughts soar through art.
The show has been made possible by the cooperative efforts of the MSJC Fine Arts Gallery, California Family Live Centers, Worth Visual Arts, Planet Youth, Rubidoux Youth Opportunity Center and Empower Youth, Hemet. The art mentors represented from all three centers trained, worked and taught community children from CFLC’s Kin Care, Boy’s and Girl’s Club of Alberhill Ranch, My City Life, Ina Arbuckle Elementary, Elsinore Elementary Schools and Think Together. Youth mentors worked a total of 51 workshops between April and June, teaching and mentoring in sculpture methods.
The gallery will last from Aug. 22 – Sep. 15 and will have an opening reception Wednesday, Aug. 31 from 4 to 7 p.m. The gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. San Jacinto Campus Fine Arts Gallery is located at 1499 N. State St., Building 1400, in San Jacinto.
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