ABCs bring art into ghetto

Art program helps at risk children overcome

By Ryan Bachman
The Metropolitan

The Center for the Visual Arts provides refuge and a constructive, productive alternative for at-risk youth in the community.

The Art Builds Communities Program is a coordinated project with the Denver Housing Authority proposed to facilitate and support artistic programs for inner-city youth.

The premise for ABC is that experience in the arts may provide an opportunity to increase self-esteem, confidence and pride, said Gail Arcese, Educational Program Coordinator. The center recently received the Downtown Denver Partnership Award for the ABC Programās disadvantaged youth work.

The program, consisting of three primary objectives, is intended to encourage positive, constructive use of leisure time for at-risk youth through involvement in the arts.

The ABC Program is also aiming to provide positive social units and a safe environment for youth, as well as expanding knowledge and appreciation for oneās own culture and other cultures, Arcese said.

The core program of ABC, now in its third year, provides hands-on art workshops and seven Denver Housing Authority communities for youth age 6 to 12 on specified Saturdays and Mondays throughout the school year.

Each year, 500 children participate in multidisciplanary, multicultural, visual and performing art workshops led by guest artists from the Denver area. Metro students and young adult volunteers assist at the workshops and serve as role models and mentors.

The core ABC Program is supplemented by two special events. In the spring, Art Trek, brings 120 DHA youth for an art day at the center. The youth engage in interactive gallery activities and workshops. During the summer, 45 DHA youth attend A2D2 Camp (Art and Athletics Defeat Drugs), five continuous days of art workshops and recreational athletics on the college campus.

ABC workshops explore various ethnocentric arts along with traditional art forms firmly established in the belief that a peopleās culture is vital in nurturing and affirming their sense of self-worth. Samples of the workshop topics include African masks, quilt making, and storytelling; Lakota shields and chokers; Polynesian dance; Mexican tin sculpture, Retablos and marionettes; and, Aboriginal images on cloth.

Additional intrinsic rewards experienced by youth participants is an opportunity to transfer alternatives in arts to alternatives in life and to replace acts of frustration and violence with a positive means of expression. The ABC Program also offers discovery of the arts for youth whose economic circumstance often precludes exposure, Arcese said.

One of the future events held by ABC is an Art Trek day and May 9, in which the Center for the Visual Arts will hire a bus to pickup the youth and their families and take them to see the Gulf Canada galleryās Spirit of West  show.