artNotes from Hyde House: artCamp interns are important

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Former artCamp Interns Emily Rose, Amy Lane, Sydney Hartless, Kaylee Schultz, Maddie Capps and Owen Platt with Alice Lynn Greenwood-Mathé, artCamp Director (3rd from right).

I can’t imagine trying to stage artCamp without volunteer interns! Interns are important!

What am I to do? Some of my best interns have taken full time summer jobs and won’t be available for artCamp.

Help! I need more interns to make this year’s artCamp run smoothly and well. Last year artCamp had eleven interns. Today we have only four. My teachers need your support!

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Will you please step up and say you’ll help? Will you give a day or two or more to have a lot of fun assisting an artCamp teacher, while encouraging our young aspiring artists as they explore and create in the world of art at artCentral?

Please call me today at (417) 358-4404 to say you want to help make our 2019 artCamp another grand success. You can make a difference!

artCentral’s artCamp for youth, ages 8 to 14, is happening Mondays through Fridays, July 8-12 and July 14-19, 2019! For two weeks our beautiful, historic Hyde House galleries and our Pottery House are transmogrified into teaching classrooms. A typical day looks like this for you as a volunteer intern:

·       Sack Lunch – Bring one. Juice boxes are available for 50 cents

·       Dress Code – Cool, appropriately modest, art intern attire

·       Cell Phones – Silenced and not used in front of campers (Campers don’t get to keep or carry theirs)

·       9:00 a.m. – Coffee’s ready! Arrival and classroom preparation

·       9:45 a.m. – Porch time with campers

·       10:00 a.m. – Morning class session begins

·       Noon – Lunch with campers and lawn play with teacher and intern supervision

·       1:00 p.m. – Afternoon class session begins

·       2:45 p.m. – Snacks for campers in the kitchen

·       3:00 p.m. – Campers depart. Teachers and interns tidy and prepare classrooms for the next morning

·       4:00 p.m. – Finish up and head home.

Inspired by this year’s artCamp theme, “All Creatures Great and Small”, our 2019 curriculum is packed with forty imaginative creature-centric classes in a multitude of media from clay to fiber, paper to paint, glass to recycles and more. You can find them all listed with details on artCentral’s website at www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019.html. Check out the choices and let me know your preferences. I’ll try to match your interning time with your favorites. No special skills are required. Just bring your interest in art and the desire to make a difference helping boys and girls have fun, positive experiences in a nurturing environment where they can discover their talents.

The boys and girls that come to artCamp are amazing. They choose to come. They beg to come. They pester their parents to let them come. One returning young artCamp fellow negotiated with his mom to let him earn half his two week tuition by doing extra family chores. She agreed. He succeeded and he’s registered to learn and create for the two special weeks he looked forward to all through the school year.

Guided and supported by their teachers and interns artCampers have fun and make new friends while making lots of truly amazing art to display at the closing exhibition then take home as their own uniquely created treasures. These artCampers grow before our very eyes as they extend kindness and support to each other. The older ones help the younger ones and the younger ones find older artCampers as role models to learn from and emulate.

Interns are essential to facilitating artCamp’s positive, uplifting opportunities for growth and discovery. This year I have only four interns signed up so far. Justus Cunningham is a student still in school. A Carthage High School graduate, artist Aurelia Burr is newly returned to Missouri following a one year gig as an au pair for two children in Australia.

Jackie Boyer, a retired interior designer, serves on or presides over several philanthropic boards in Carthage. Originally from Georgia, she’s a long time member of artCentral’s board of directors, just finishing her term as artCentral’s board president. Her grandson, Cook Hudson, comes to artCamp all the way from Columbia, Missouri.

Bev Sturgis, a career retired aerospace engineer, is an Oklahoma farm girl and avid master gardener dedicated to keeping organic seed lines safe. She is an outdoor enthusiast and dedicated biker and an emerging artist in various media.

Justus, Aurelia, Jackie and Bev are my key 2019 artCamp volunteer intern-magic-makers so far. They are terrifically valued and appreciated for sharing their precious summer days mentoring our delightful artCampers! Please, please give me a call or email me at [email protected] and add your energy to this terrific intern team.

Again I send out a most sincere “Thank You!” to the community supporters of artCamp. Their contributions make artCamp possible. This year’s generous artCamp donors include the Helen S. Boylan Foundation, the Carthage Council on the Arts, Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio, the Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation, Leggett & Platt, Inc., the Rotary Club of Carthage, S&S Computers and Walmart.

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