Art Literacy program needs volunteers

The Sisters Elementary School Art Literacy Program is seeking community volunteers to assist with the program starting in January.

Program director Paul Bennett said that all community members are welcome to volunteer for the program.

"The school itself is so open to having volunteers come into the school," he said. He added that presently the program is short of volunteers and that "we are looking for a couple more people."

The program is in its eighth year of providing students in grades 1-4 with the opportunity to learn about artists and their art forms, after which the students participate in hands-on adventures to create art in the like styles and mediums of the artists they have been studying.

The elementary school's program is loosely built on the exemplary art literacy program the Beaverton School District has showcased for the last 30 years. Bennett remarked that the Beaverton program has over 1,000 volunteers.

"We model ourselves somewhat after what they have," Bennett said. "We are in connection with them, and we kind of go back and forth with how their program is run."

During the course of each year, volunteers talk to the elementary school's students about four or five artists. Students learn about the artists' lives and their works and then do hands-on projects that relate to the various artists.

Bennett explained, "Maybe we'll do Matisse and then talk about his period of time when he was cutting out paper and doing more abstract work and then have a cut-out paper project for them (the students) to do modeled after Matisse."

Currently, most of the program's volunteers are elementary school parents who want to see art featured in their children's classrooms. Bennett said:

"It's a really good combination of being able to make the art happen through the parents. The parent can work in the child's classroom, so the parent gets to know who these other kids are that their child comes home and talks about all the time. The parents are able to do some hands-on with the kids. It's a real win-win situation for everyone."

The program's goal is to reach every student.

Bennett said: "We're funded with that idea. The goal is always to try to expose each student to four or five different artists four or five different times throughout the year, and then each year we would do different artists, so that by the time they get out of elementary school, they'll know 20 or 25 different artists."

Bennett proudly stated that the Sisters Elementary School Art Literacy Program won a state award two years ago for the creative experiences it offers. The program is one of the many reasons that the Sisters School District is repeatedly acknowledged for providing excellence in the arts.