After having their art classes shut down for years due to budget cuts, Blatchley middle schoolers reignited their creativity with the help of Americorps Resident Teaching Artist Clare Sheedy. Sheedy helped the youngsters start the “Art Lunch Bunch,” a club that meets during school lunch to learn about art and experiment with different mediums. Sheedy also started an after-school art club and actively seeks new ways to get kids engaged with their artistic side.
“Art is already in their lives. It’s in their families. It’s in the Sitka community around them. It’s in their notebooks. It’s something that we’re constantly co-creating, and that’s everywhere,” says Sheedy. “So I hope to just kind of be a facilitator of those touch points.”
In 2017, Americorps launched its nationwide ArtistYear program to “recruit, train, and place exceptional artists of all disciplines to serve as full-time AmeriCorps Resident Teaching Artists (RTA).” As a result, 424 RTAs have been placed, more than 87,745 K-12 students served, and 533,100 hours of arts education delivered.
Sheedy expresses that she has been “incredibly moved by the generosity and strong sense of community amongst Sitkans, and working with the students has been an absolute joy so far.”
Art programs like these make a real difference in kids’ lives. The ability to create something purely for the sake of beauty or aesthetics, and not for the sake of survival or instinct, sets humans apart from the rest of the world’s creatures. Not only does art have intrinsic value as a universal expression of humanity, but it also offers productive value by helping kids develop important life skills such as fine motor skills, cognitive development, and math and language competency.