December 14, 1985
ART CLASSES THAT TEACH CHILDREN TO SOAR FREE
Gerald B. Jordan, Inquirer Staff Writer
Their eyes open wide, like the poetic windows of the soul, to reveal unfettered imaginations - worlds where aliens live in apartment buildings and hip dudes on street corners puff on chartreuse cigars.
"I just made him up," said 10-year-old Jerushia Seward, a fifth-grader at Samuel Powel School and one of the dozen or so students at the Powelton Village workshop of Prints in Progress. "I usually think about punk rockers when I do this. I like the way their clothes are, except when they have holes in them. But I like all the different designs."
Jerushia and her Powelton Village classmates are among more than 600 children who attend after-school and summer classes at the four workshops run by the nonprofit group called Prints in Progress. It was founded 25 years ago by the Print Club in a converted bookmobile. Now it's an independent organization, with branches in four locations: Powelton, Kensington, Germantown and South Philadelphia.
Prints in Progress has introduced a generation of Philadelphia children to printmaking through classes, in-school demonstrations and workshops presented by visiting professional artists. As a result of their exposure to art, some are now pursuing careers in the visual arts.
Recently at the Powelton workshop a gathering of grade-school children worked busily, painting and coloring pictures that would become vivid prints on aprons. Almost all of them were earmarked for Christmas gifts to proud parents.
"The big rule around here is 'no white space,' " said Elizabeth Feldman, executive director of Prints in Progress.
And the students gladly comply by drawing from themes that reflect the cultural heritage of the neighborhoods surrounding the workshops.
They are taught also to defy convention. Jerushia's man with the neon cigar, for example, is no accident of color.
"I tried to make it not plain, like an everyday look. I tried to make it a future look. That's better than just a plain black cigar," she said.
One of her classmates across the room had caught the spirit, too.
"This is an alien. And this is the building he lives in. He's got six mouths, two noses and three eyes," said 8-year-old Terra Turner. "I don't know why . . . it just came to me."
Terra studied her model, gazing across the room to a painting of the alien pinned to a chalkboard. Then she looked down to a table that was crowded with buckets of paint and fearlessly plunged her brush into a tub of blackness. Terra heaped creative layers onto the piece of foam that would transfer her design onto cloth.
The students usually print three pieces of material, sometimes up to five. They can keep one, but the rest are for sale at the Prints in Progress office and gallery at 1424 Spruce St., where the annual holiday exhibition is now under way. Part of the proceeds go toward paying for materials and the rest go into the students' pockets.
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Seven-year-old Ajaamo Howell ("I'll be 8 in February") climbed all over a large table, taking special care to thoroughly iron all areas of his apron. He was applying the finishing touches to a freshly made transfer, making certain the print was properly set by the heat of a steam iron.
"I don't mind this," he said. "It's part of the fun."
Even Tom Sawyer would be impressed by the skills of a teacher who could convince a 7-year-old boy that ironing was fun.
FAST AND REFLECTIVE
"Some are more speedy; some are more reflective in the way they approach things," said Valerie Wegner, who is an instructor at Powelton and is an artist in her own right, working with fiber. "Some need more encouragement. Some are more experimental and just dive in it."
Two students from Samuel Gompers School - fourth-grader Naima Brown and fifth-grader Keisha Tyree - were completing aprons for (shhhhh, don't tell anyone) Christmas gifts. They were working on a can't-miss deal. They would, on occasion, be able to wear the aprons, too.
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Leah Chalfen, who is 16 and a junior at Girls' High, got interested in Prints in Progress a few years ago when her younger sister took classes. Now Leah is an apprentice at the Powelton workshop and thinking about attending art college. "I liked it, so I got into it, too," she said of her start at the workshop. "I took some art classes in school and now I'm taking classes at Moore (College of Art) on Saturday. I'd like to go on to an art
college."
It's that kind of vision that the workshops try to cultivate, Feldman said.
THINKING HARDER
"We introduce the kids to the visual arts in a professional way," she said. "We don't want them to come here and just cut and paste, or draw trees with squirrels in them. The sun doesn't have to be in the corner of the sky. What we try to do is make them think a little bit harder, because a lot of people will take the easy way out."
The Prints in Progress students are so creative that they design and print their own book covers. And, when the classes visit places - the zoo or museums, for example - they return to the workshop to paint from their new experience.
TAKEOFFS ON GROOMS
The bold figures painted on foam, for example, were takeoffs on the Red Grooms exhibition that the students saw in the summer, shaped with the guidance of instructor Joan Flannery, who creates small relief sculpture from wood and metal.
The classes range from beginning to advanced, and the highest tuition charged is $40 for a semester.
"We'll never say, 'You can't go because you can't pay,' " Feldman said.
Each workshop has two artists on staff and selects one or two of the advanced students to work as apprentices. The Germantown workshop has an artist-in-residence, who teaches a weekly adult class.
The holiday exhibition of students' works - T-shirts, sweat shirts, cards, books, aprons, potholders, dish towels, ceramic tiles, jewelry, wall hangings and prints on paper and fabrics - can be seen between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Copyright (c) 1985 The Philadelphia Inquirer, reprinted with permission |
