Culture
Local arts educator helps students share stories through art in after-school program
By: Julia Weber
Posted on:
ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – If you’ve been to a local library recently, there’s a chance you may have seen a public art installation on view. At Corning, Nelsonville, Coolville, and Eastern Public Libraries, community students have shared their favorite stories through an after-school art program.
For more than a decade, local artist and arts educator Jessica Held has been leading community youth programming and fostering arts appreciation in local students. As part of her latest work, Held is collaborating with Kids on Campus, a partnership between the Athens community and Ohio University that provides underserved youth and their families with enriching opportunities.
Held said she was inspired to create this year’s programming — book-based art — after visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum this summer and seeing an exhibition of multidisciplinary artist Erin Shirreff’s work. Held said one of Shirreff’s artworks was displayed as a framed open book, inspiring her to consider the method of presentation in other art projects.
In the program, Held works with students at local schools to create visual art that represents what their favorite stories mean to them. The works created by the students at Millcreek, Nelsonville, Federal Hocking, and Eastern Elementary schools have since been shown at numerous public libraries across Southeastern Ohio.
The project’s premise was simple, but it led to a wide array of outcomes: choose a meaningful story and express it visually.
“The students have chosen their favorite story — a book they read or a story they want to make up — and to just draw it,” Held said.
She said she left the project open-ended to encourage students to use their creativity; students were free to draw, write, and express themselves and their stories however they saw fit.
“They’re sponges … I think that they all are engaged and excited,” Held said.
Held said she believes the after-school program is particularly impactful for students whose schools lack dedicated art classes. Because there aren’t many opportunities for youth art to be publicly exhibited, she felt it was important to showcase the students’ work and foster a sense of accomplishment and recognition.
“I asked them: why? Why have art shows? They get it,” she explained. “They’re excited about it — I don’t know if they totally get it, but they grasp that it’s showing and sharing for the community, for self-pride, for all those different reasons,” she said.
For Held, the most rewarding part of the program has undoubtedly been seeing her students reap the benefits of making art.
“I feel like the kids love it. They’re engaged, they’re happy,” she said. “There are multiple benefits you can just see through the excitement of creating.”