You guys are never going to believe this, but today is the 10th anniversary of our program! On February 8, 2012, TURN City Center for the Arts opened, and on that day, it was only Nina and our two coordinators at the time, Ali and Allison. We have grown so much since then, and accomplished so many things in the 10 years since, that we never could have foreseen. We’ve participated in several art shows and juried competitions in the community, shown our short films in film festivals and special exhibitions, had our own booth at the Urban Arts Festival multiple years, performed at the Davis County Fair, and that’s not even mentioning all the fun stuff we do here daily! Our client base, class schedule, physical program, and skills have all grown over these 10 years, and we’ve been blessed to work with some truly wonderful clients, staff, and volunteers. A big part of what our program has become is due to Allison and Ali’s vision that they had for our little art center. They got us up and running, and I just simply kept it going following that same vision 🙂 Thank you Ali and Allison!
Things are still a little weird as we continue to weather this pandemic, but I wanted to give you guys a glimpse into our typical day at the art center.
For our acrylic painting class this morning, we were trying something out in an effort to take ourselves out of the equation when creating, and did some blindfold painting! It took a little getting used to, and most of the artists were a little hesitant at first, but once they got in the swing of it, created paintings that were not only very interesting, but quite different from their usual styles.
I wasn’t able to be in the other two classes that happened at the same time to get pictures, but we also had a mythology class where we are reading and discussing Russian fairy tales, and music history where the class was learning about Frank Sinatra.
During our second class, we had an art history class where Jake was teaching them about Augusta Savage and her sculptures. It was great to learn about all the work she did, as well as the struggles she endured as a female artist of color in the early 20th century. The class looked at and discussed/analyzed a sculpture of hers entitled “Portrait Head of John Henry”
During the art history class, we also had a documentaries class where they were watching a film about dinosaurs in Alaska, and a karaoke class.
Open studio is always a hotbed of fun, and today we had people, drawing, painting, singing karaoke, and writing.
