“I never realized how many opportunities there were for people with creative minds until I saw the variety of occupations represented at the Express Yourself Arts Conference,” noted one student participant. “My favorite was Honor Raconteur. Such excellent writing advice. Such witty encouragement. She was a joy to learn from!”
At the sixth annual Express Yourself Arts Conference (EYAC) on November 8th at World Outreach in Murfreesboro, 60 high school students from around the county were given the opportunity to study with and learn from successful artists in a series of workshops. They were placed into tracks where they learned about Literary Arts, Performing Arts, Performing Arts-Music, Visual Arts or they could experience several different art forms in the Dabbler Track. Class topics ranged from painting techniques to salsa dancing to clay sculpting to stage combat to theatre make-up and more.
During the painting class, Chris Weeks, from Painting with a Twist, showed students simple techniques for giving depth to a landscape of trees. Each student was allowed to give free reign to their talents as they used his lesson to paint their own landscape. Students in the visual arts track also got to learn sculpting techniques from Kay Curie and Lewis Snyder from Studio S Pottery.
Performing arts track students were given the chance to work out their aggressions without actually hurting anyone during a class on stage combat conducted by Greg Wilson, who has acted and directed at Lamplighter’s Theater in Smyrna. Fake bruises could have been artfully applied by any member of the class after a stage make-up class by Georgia Career Institute instructors Irma Brown and Sharon Michon.
Charlie Parker accompanies James Mintz as he prepares to solo
The Dabblers worked up an appetite in a Salsa class led by MTSU dance instructors Paco Ramos and Angela Armstrong. Last year the hot class was African dancing, and this year it was Latin dancing.
“We had fun and seriously did artwork,” said another student. “It also helped me become more aware of jobs, how people work and even networking.”
“It is thrilling to hear how much students received from this experience,” said Lee Rennick, executive director of the Business Education Partnership Foundation, one of the organizers of the event. “One said she hit a higher note than she had ever hit in Charlie Parker’s voice class and another was excited she learned to draw a human body in Lauren Rudd’s fashion illustration class. These are the kinds of stories that make the whole event worthwhile. It gives the kids confidence to pursue their dreams.”
Express Yourself Arts Conference, a collaboration of the Business Education Partnership Foundation (BEP), Read To Succeed (RTS) and Arts in Rutherford (AIR), was made possible by grants received from Middle Tennessee Electric Customers Care, Inc. and The Adams Family Foundation.
The “Business of Art” panel discussion
Besides the workshops, there was a panel discussion on the “Business of Art”, with members of the business community including graphic designer Sheana Firth, furnishing design specialist Marianne Miller, Screen Art owner Mike Bickford, Latin Grammy-nominated sound engineer J.C. Monterrosa and jewelry designer Bob Lanier. It was followed by a discussion of arts advocacy by Pat Blankenship, founder of Children’s Academy Theatre of Tennessee (CATT).
As a special treat, participating students heard through Skype from members of the design team at Nissan Design America. They spoke of the integration of technology and art in their design work.
Each participant received a booklet of student participant submitted writing and a DVD containing all of the performing and visual art submitted as part of the application process. The DVD was created by high school student Zach Boisjoly, who is a past participant of another BEP program, State Farm Summer Business Camp.
For more information about EYAC, visit rutherfordbep.org, readtosucceed.org or visit the BEP’s facebook page at facebook.com/BEPFoundation.
