
BLAST ART
Students created personal narratives in sketchbooks with images and text as they thought about what it means to live in their community and its context for their personal stories. Artist Cameron Kelly provided the driving vision for this project in collaboration with Courtney Boyden, one of the existing BLAST after school coordinators and Jennifer Spangler, Arts Education Coordinator at Butte County Office of Education (BCOE). Building on student interest for an outdoor sketching program that Boyden started, this year-long after school program helped students use art
as a way of seeing their world. This partnership between Chico Art Center, the Chico Unified School District After School Program, and the Butte County Office of Education (BCOE) was funded by a Youth Arts Action Grant from California Arts Council with additional support from California County Superintendents Arts Initiative. For more images visit chicoartcenter.com
The Train Car Gallery
May 27, 2020, Chico Art Center
The Gratitude Flower
December 11, 2019, Chico State Arts Collaboration Space, Arts Building for an Honors Course Gallery Walk.
Lily Derecktor Gaul, an Honors student and Early Childhood Development Major at CSU Chico, helped conceptualize and produce this project. Students were prompted with three questions. Who and what are you thankful for? What helps your gratitude grow? What do you hope to have or achieve in your future?
Derecktor Gaul says about her motivation to teach, “Children, like flowers, are delicate and need to be watered with hope. Children’s dreams and ideas are what keep the world spinning. The art they create and the words they write are signs of development and improvement. As impressionable as they are, it is important to indulge and protect their imaginations to keep them as authentic as possible. Children are beautiful because of the authenticity of their honesty and hope which is shown in all that they create. When they come together and work on a project their art is enhanced. The Gratitude Flower is a demonstration and reminder of the hopefulness and authenticity children bring into the world.”
Dia de los Muertos Art & Altar Exhibition
November 1-22, 2019, Chico Art Center
