The Arts Council of Greater Lansing has given $30,000 in grants to nine groups, ranging from the Earl Nelson Singers Company that will perform Negro spirituals, to the Meridian Community Band which will produce a Grand Sousa Concert. (Check here to see the entire list.)
The largest sum, $7,000, went to Reach Studio Art Center in Lansing’s REO Town.
The center got two grants: $3,000 to support free, after school drop-in art sessions and $4,000 to fund a collaborative effort with Michigan State University’s (MSU) Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH), says Alice Brinkman, founding director.
The program, called Patterns of Place, has already begun with visits from Guillermo Delgado, a visiting artist teaching at MSU this term. He brings 19 students to the art center as he teaches them to work with the inner city children. The children, ages seven to 12 years, are making books featuring different art techniques that various MSU artists teach them.
The first session was on printmaking. Others will be on poetry, painting, photography and collage.
Since nearby Moores River School closed, Lansing School District is helping get students to the art center from a broader neighborhood.
“It’s so important that these kids have good role models,” says Brinkman.
And for the art, Brinkman says there are few places where a child makes a decision about what is right or wrong.
“There’s only one right answer to a math question," she says. "Through art, the child takes a leadership role in creative problem solving. At the end, they have something uniquely theirs.”
Source: Alice Brinkman, Reach Studio Art Center
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie
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