| Issue #45, February 16, 2007 |
art commentary
With Marion Wolberg Weiss
ARTS IN EDUCATION
Part III: Guild Hall’s Educational Program
It’s indeed commendable for both Guild Hall and the Parrish Museum to sponsor yearly Student Art Shows that are professionally hung and publicized. But what about the rest of the year? Is art education encouraged by these respected institutions in a similar manner?
You bet it is, we’re happy to say.
Let’s take Guild Hall’s educational program as an example, a well-established and long-running effort, with Janet Goleas currently at the helm. Ms. Goleas’ background is as comprehensive as the program she oversees. It includes a studio art degree from San Francisco Art Institute, teaching experience in art history at Southampton College, and traveling and living abroad as a teenager.
But the one aspect among her diverse life experiences that seems most important is her role as a mother. As Ms. Goleas puts it, “Becoming a mother changed my focus; it would never be the same again.” This doesn’t suggest that Ms. Goleas’ world no longer centers around art as it once did before she had her son. Quite the contrary. Now that same world is filtered through the eyes of her child.
And it’s Ms. Goleas’ aim to make such a world as perfect as possible concerning art education in this area, although she knows that could be an impossible task. She seems undaunted by the challenge, however. “In a perfect world,” she says with resolve, “art should address every child in every school and grade.”
The educational programs at Guild Hall are trying to do just that, one small step at a time. According to Ms. Goleas, there’s a project that was initiated last year called “Art Link,” which may fit the bill. Second graders at Montauk and Amagansett schools did a project featuring Andy Warhol, where they listened to lectures, visited the artist’s Montauk house, came to the Warhol exhibit at Guild Hall, and most importantly, perhaps, created their own prints based on his portraits.
And was the project successful? Ms. Goleas simply says, “It so exceeded our expectations.”
Another program celebrates a different art form: poetry. “We had master poets work with eighth grade English students in Meredith Cortes’ East Hampton Middle School class,” Ms Goleas explains. “It really set the kids on fire. We even had Bay Street’s Kate Mueth give them help with performing their poetry. After the reading, a student came up to me and said, ‘This was the best day of my life.’”
As Ms. Goleas talks about other educational programs, like the drama literature workshop and a “Memory Project” where children’s photographs from AIDS-ridden countries are given to American teenagers who would then paint portraits of the subjects and send them back to the children.
“We already have our first photographs,” Ms. Goleas says, with a mixture of excitment regarding the possibilities and also of sadness at the implications. “We have to think more globally. We have to reach an understanding of what’s happening in the world, an understanding that’s convincing and compelling. Art can help us do that.”
For more information about Guild Hall’s workshops and upcoming educational events, including a festival of student films and videos (March 9) call Guild Hall at 631-324-0806.
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