Training young artists as citizens

On June 18, a group of students ages 14 to 21 will come together with professional artists to create art and develop skills that will help carry them through their professional lives.

Through ArtsWork, an employment training program under the wings of the non-profit organization COMPAS, youth apprentices are mentored by professional artists and work 25 hours per week to help develop job skills and learn how to work with others.

Programs such as ArtsWork, which is modeled after a similar program in Chicago, are designed to give teens creative, interactive outlets through which to improve their skills, further their interests and create future opportunities.

Shelia Bland, who has been the ArtsWork director for COMPAS for the last four years, said that through ArtsWork COMPAS achieves its goal of strengthening people and communities in Minnesota by engaging them in the arts and “preparing young people to enter the workplace and be successful.”

In its seventh year in St. Paul, ArtsWork is premiering in Minneapolis this year. The seven professional artists involved and their apprentices will be divided among four work sites in St. Paul (McDonough Recreation Center, El Rio Vista Recreation Center in the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center, St. Paul Conservatory for the Performing Arts in the Landmark Center, Ecolab Plaza) and one in Minneapolis (Midtown Global Market).

Throughout the six weeks of the program (June 18-July 27) each group of apprentices will be completing a special project. Dancers, for example, will be performing at Midtown Global Market every Friday after the lunch hour, and musicians will also perform Fridays on Ecolab Plaza.

“Both of these groups will also be working towards a concert to be performed as part of the closing celebration,” Bland said.

In addition to their larger projects, apprentices will also produce artwork for a retail store run by specially-hired youth in Ecolab Plaza. The store is only open during the course of the ArtsWork summer program, selling jewelry, paintings, sculptures, mosaics, photographs, CDs, and any other merchandise produced by ArtsWork apprentices over the past seven years. Proceeds help fund the ArtsWork program and pay its artists and apprentices.

Bland said COMPAS tries to get word out about ArtsWork by sending information to schools and universities two to three times during the course of the year, as well as advertising on the Internet and through newsletters.

From a pool of about 160 applicants each spring, Bland said ArtsWork hires on anywhere from 35 to 70 youth each summer. In seven years, Bland has seen apprentices return as many as four times to be part of the ArtsWork program.

This year, as a means to create more interest and keep former apprentices involved in the program, Bland said ArtsWork will be sending out a follow-up questionnaire to apprentices to “see how ArtsWork has affected [apprentices’] lives after completion of the program.”

ArtsWork hopes apprentices develop increased confidence, a greater awareness and understanding of a variety of cultures, and polished social skills.

“ArtsWork reaches out to young people across age, cultural and economic lines,” Bland said. “This is one of the strengths of the program. Any one work site will be made up of both 14-year-olds and college students, both inner city kids and kids from the suburbs. We have had youth from Hmong, European America, African, African American, Russian, and Latin communities.”

Lisa Himmelstrup, now in her fourth year mentoring with ArtsWork, agrees that the program is a great opportunity for apprentices to learn to “[work] together in a job setting with a diverse group of students.”

Himmelstrup, who is also a ceramics teacher at Central High School in St. Paul, first learned of ArtsWork while teaching classes at the Northern Clay Center.

“It sounded very interesting and like a great way to work with a small group of students intensively,” Himmelstrup said.

Himmelstrup knows all about the difference the arts can make in a young person’s life. When she was 15, Himmelstrup took her first clay class and said she has been hooked since then. To supplement her teaching salary, she now sells her work privately with a small group of fellow artists.

In addition to a love of art, Himmetstrup hopes that in her years as an artistic mentor she has shared with her apprentices an “appreciation of what is involved with the ceramics process and creative process” and has taught them “about some of the business parts, such as marketing your work, displaying your work, writing an artist statement, photographing work, selling.”

But Himmelstrup said the apprentices aren’t the only ones who learn from ArtsWork each summer.

“I always have amazing experiences each year because it is a very intensive program and I get to know the students well, along with seeing such inspirational art work come out of the six weeks that we are together,” she said.

This year, Himmelstrup will be working with nine to ten apprentices at the McDonough Recreation Center in St. Paul to teach them the basics of working with clay. She hopes to move into larger group projects such as a tile mural and carved vessels, and she plans to take her apprentices on several field trips to give them the chance to be inspired by talking with other ceramic artists.

Denise Tennen, a first-year ArtsWork mentor who learned about the program through an e-mail, also hopes to help inspire young artists through sculpting clay.

“I have been mentoring students for a number of years now, so the intention of the program was interesting to me,” Tennen said.

Tennen and her nine apprentices will be working out of the El Rio Vista Recreation Center in the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center in St. Paul to create a site-specific piece to be installed at Minnesota’s Goodwill Industries. The process will include surveying the site, brainstorming ideas and pitching those ideas through presentations to Goodwill representatives.

In addition to the Goodwill project, Tennen also plans to invite younger children into the program to give her apprentices a chance to share their skills and knowledge with others.

A former architect, Tennen said her approach to public art is very client-centered, so the goal of her group’s project is to include all parties in the decision-making process of the final created piece.

“I’m a proponent of public art. I really think that it’s wonderful to have art out in public life,” Tennen said.

Tennen said interviewing apprentices proved sometimes challenging because each applicant interviewed with two artists. If both artists were interested in working with the apprentice, bargaining and trading would ensue until both parties were satisfied. Ultimately, though, Tennen said she only wanted to take on individuals she thought she could serve best.

“Attitude really played a huge part in my selection, sometimes even above quality,” Tennen said. “I’d much rather work with a person who has a certain enthusiasm, engagement and interest.”

Tennen said fewer than half of those who applied for apprenticeships actually followed through with the interviewing process.

“It will be very, very interesting to see how the group comes together,” Tennen said.

As a professional artist and someone interested in pottery and ceramics since she was a teenager, Tennen creates commissioned pieces (including about one to two large community pieces per year) and has been teaching her craft to others at community centers and ceramics hubs such as the Northern Clay Center since 2001.

Tennen said she left architecture in 1988 to focus on art because her architectural projects were much too broad.

“You make plans and they are executed by, not thousands, but a lot, a lot, of different people have to come together to actually make a building, which in a way is a wonderful thing, but there’s a great deal of complexity to it, and there was something that really wasn’t satisfying about it,” she said.

With her own art, Tennen now has more control and can play a larger role in making a difference in terms of art.

“Each project is its own exciting roller coaster adventure,” Tennen said. “It just is usually a ride with lots of unknowns and curves.”

Supported largely by corporate sponsors, ArtsWork also receives funding from St. Paul and Minneapolis and the COMPAS United Arts program to help pay artist and apprentice wages.