Changes, Excitement, and Art!

Winding Down 2012

With the holiday season among us, it is easy for us to get caught up in it all and forget to slow down and see the art! Can you believe we are already in December?! With all of the excitement happening at the Monroe Street Arts Center, the last few months seemed to slip away!

First things first, as many of you know, we have a new Executive Director at MSAC! Her name is Holly Baris and she began in November. She brings a welcomed warmth and energy to the staff, students and parents. Many great things are in our future at MSAC-Welcome, Holly!

A wintery found object sculpture group project

Winter Break Classes!

We have winter camps! January 2nd, 3rd and 4th from 9-11:30am and 1-3:30pm. You can sign up for one class, or all three! Classes are for 5-7 year olds or 8-10 year olds. I don't know about you, but I will be happy to get back into the swing of things after the whirlwind of the holidays! We will be doing 2-d art in the mornings and 3-d in the afternoons. Check our website for more details and to sign up.

We also are making snow globes and snow people on Sunday, December 16th from 1-3pm. What a great way to spend a lazy Sunday and get into the holiday spirit! More details here.

Thank you!

As we ease into a new year we all reflect on the things we are happy to have had in the past year, as well as what we resolve to do differently. I am thankful to continue to bring art into children's lives and be able to do it so effortlessly with the help of our great parent and staff community. I give a very humble "thank you" to all of you who help support and encourage the arts in this great city.

A Few Great Changes!

Art classes are humming along at the Center, and we are making some pretty neat stuff! 

Stay tuned for the release of our Winter/Spring program!

It's watercolor with a black glue outline! The colors are so vibrant!

Thank You, Jen!

Most importantly, we bid a fine farewell to our Executive Director, Jen Roth. Jen has brought this wonderful (and not so little) art center on Monroe Street so very far in her five years as the Executive Director. We attribute our past success in music and art to Jen! We will be sad to see her go, but (very) excited to have our new Executive Director, Holly Baris join us November first.  Please check the link to read an informative letter from our Board President, Doug Poland and Jen Roth.

So here's to a new round of excitement for the Monroe Street Arts Center, and a very big

 THANK YOU to Jen for all she has done!

Fall is Here!

fall nature mandala made in homeschool art!

Well our Fall Program is, anyway! We are in week two of the fall program, and we are off to a great start. We have a lot of great art classes running, and a few new ones, too! We started two brand-new homeschool art classes. These new classes focus on specific artists in history and specific media. This is very exciting, because we can focus all of our energy on one artist or media. So far everyone really seems to enjoy it! Check out this program here.  You can also check out the homeschool group music program, that runs Thursdays from 1pm-1:45. This is a great way to explore movement, singing, history, and instruments in a homeschool specific setting! 

For the last year we have been offering art classes on a monthly basis, which is handy for families that have a lot of activities to plan for your young learners! I personally enjoy this monthly sign up, because, as a teacher, I get to meet so many wonderful, young artists!

Speaking of all these children that are humming about MSFAC, I had a moment where I thought about the many regular art students I get. For years now, I have gotten to know quite a few families and gotten pretty attached to them. It is so great to look at the class lists and see some of the same names. The best part is that they know their way around my art class and are very helpful to newcomers. I get the warm and fuzzies big time when a new student is nervously sitting in my class for the first time and a veteran student eases their worries. Kids are pretty great.

Here's to another great school year of art and music!

OASis

OASis!

I have patiently waited for the last several months to tell you all the details of our latest grant funded program-OASis! OASis stands for Open Art Studio is... This is a new art program that will accommodate students with special needs from the ages of 6-18 years old.

This is not only a great step forward for MSFAC, because we can offer art enrichment to everyone, but it is also a very personally exciting adventure for me. I have an Art Therapy degree, as well as an Art Education degree, and have been wanting to combine the two for quite some time.  Abby Tindal, another art teacher that works with us is in the process of earning her Art Therapy Degree and will be finished in the spring of this year. I can tell you that she is equally excited about this new adventure we are embarking on!

We are very excited to use our knowledge of art materials and supplies to create a really great space for students will all different needs and abilities to come together and gain confidence and enrichment through art.

The program will be the last Friday of every month, starting September 28th. It will start at 3:30 and go until 5:00.  Thanks to the Capital Times Kids Fund Grant, this program is free to participants!

Open Art Studio is …Exciting, Inspiring, Creative, 

Accommodating, Approachable! 

…An art studio to help students with 

special needs gain confidence 

through art! 

Please contact us with any questions about this program at 232-1510, or email: beth@msfac.org

Summer is in full swing at the Monroe Street Fine Arts Center! 

 That means that we are bustling at the seams here with art camps and music lessons! My favorite part about summer art are the kids that come back every summer. We get to see them a year older and a year taller! It is always a hoot when we look at students for long enough until we realize we know them from last year, but they are 3 inches taller! There is such a good sense of community feeling at MSFAC and it is exponentially greater in the summer. 


Kids making friends; parents catching up; great art being made; that’s what makes those warm and fuzzies happen in our teachers! You can check out our summer art program here. Don’t forget about our Open Art Studio in the summer that runs from 3:30-4:45pm every weeknight, and Saturdays from 11:00am-12:30pm.

Wonderful Portraits from our Pleasing Portrait Art Camp!

power2give is live! 

We are so excited to be a part of Dane County's power2give, which is possible through the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission! 

Power2give puts the power in you to donate directly to local organizations in a new way, in whichever amount you choose. This is extremely exciting to us, because we can tap into a new funding opportunity and create and achieve goals that were limited to us in the past because of a lack of funding. I see this as a great opportunity for not only MSFAC, but for Dane County as a whole! Check out their website and their “about” page which has a photo of some of our kids on it!  

We are currently raising money to help create and install some new and eye-catching signage for our buildings. We have a small sign in our parking lot we would like much bigger and updated. We also have our space next door that has no signage at all. We certainly need to visually let people know what we are doing over there! We are currently being matched $0.50 to every dollar! If you are interested in donating, or you just want to check it out, click here! 

 We are doing some pretty great things at MSFAC and I think our great staff and all the wonderful volunteers really help to make that happen! 

- Beth

Summer is Upon us at the Monroe Street Fun Arts Center!

All ready for summer! Our art supply order has arrived!

Summer Classes are right around the corner, and boy, do we have some great things in store for our students!

It has been a whole year since we have had the new space next door, and we are as excited as ever to continue to fill it with many vibrant students! Not only are we holding art classes, Open Art Studio, and private art in that space, we also use it for Music Together and recitals! If you haven't met our new, one year old space, check it out!

Another part that makes summer special at MSFAC is our surge of volunteers, interns, and extra help. We have volunteers that come from West High, Edgewood, and the UW. This year we have an intern from the Art Institute of Chicago! Her name is Jordan and not only is she an extremely talented artist, she is very dedicated and excited to help us out!  I constantly feel very lucky that we get so many wonderful, helpful, and reliable people through our doors wanting to volunteer. It's a great feeling to see our youth so engaged and excited about the arts and the community! Visit our website to learn more about volunteering here.

Here's to (another) great start to summer at MSFAC! It will go fast, so let's enjoy every day of it!

Beth

Summer Art at MSFAC and our New Grant!

 Summer is on our minds!

 With only a few more weeks of spring programming, we are gearing up for our summer art classes.  This nice weather we are having sure helps us to get in the groove of summer!

In case you haven’t already looked at our programming for this summer, we are offering some pretty great classes for toddlers up to 13 year olds. We have some new themed classes for ages 5-7; my personal favorite, “Creatures of the Deep Sea” (running August 20-24), will be a fun exploration of all those crazy looking fish and living things that live at the bottom of the ocean. Jellies, crabs, and fish, oh my!

 We have two classic MSFAC classes coming up in June: “Drawing Outside the Lines” and “Painting without Brushes.” Both classes are a great way to stretch that imagination and think of different ways to use traditional materials. We have made some pretty great things in the past. Here are a few shots of the “Paint without Brushes” camp from last summer:

Benji and Emma painting with shaving cream!

 

Our end of the week art show!

Don’t forget about classes for ages 8-10 , and some really great classes for ages 11-13!!

What were your kid’s favorite summer camps in the past?

We received our grant! 

Our first ever grant from the Kids Fund!

 Last month, we officially received our grant! We applied to the Kids Fund, which is described from their website: “The Kids Fund is a non-profit, tax-exempt, public grant-making charitable organization. Our grants focus on assisting disadvantaged children and youth in Dane County”.

We will use the money to create a new art program. We dubbed this new program “OASis” (thanks to Jen for coming up with the name!), which means “Open Art Studio is…” This new program will cater to students in our community with special needs by providing them with an outlet to make art. We have great teachers who have education in art education, art therapy, and community art, so we are using our talents to help MSFAC bring art to all community members of Madison! I will be running the program, along with Abby Tindal, starting in the fall. (Can you tell we are excited!?) If you want to read more about our wonderfully qualified teachers in the art program, go here. The best part is that the Kids Fund rewarded us MORE than we asked for! How wonderful is that?! I will keep you posted on the happenings of this program as it develops!

That’s all for now, enjoy the lovely weather!

Beth

Welcome to the Monroe Street Fine Arts Center Art Program page! I am Beth Jesion, the Lead Art Teacher, and Art Program Assistant at MSFAC.  I’ve ventured into the blogging world to be the eyes and ears at the art center for the digital world. Things at MSFAC seem to happen so fast; sometimes it's all a blur of wonderful color. This is a good place to sort it all out.

I’m here to show you all the great things we do as well as keep you informed about art classes, art shows, and special things happening at MSFAC.

The month of April is printmaking with the Afterschool Art kids…and they are making some pretty neat stuff.  Printmaking is especially cool because the kids

are not sure what their projects will look like until the very end. So they are very excited once they pull the first print. Those “whhoooaa”s and “cooool”s are what make teaching so fantastic!

Coincidentally, we did some printmaking in the Homeschool Art classes, too. Here’s an adorable print with a rabbit, named “Fiver” by 6-year-old Axel Heiden:

During May, Afterschool Art will be doing Sculpture/Mixed Media, which is always a blast.  You can sign up or check out this, or other MSFAC art classes here.

Here’s to a new venture for MSFAC in the digital world, and a new outlet for the MSFAC art program!

Stay tuned for more of the interesting stuff happening at MSFAC!

Beth

P.S. Look for the next month's entry…We received our grant! Hear all about it!