The current gig market and arts education aren’t rendering very pretty pictures, but St. Louis ArtWorks is helping to paint promising futures for area teens interested in making careers in the arts. And the young artists in training are getting paid – now.
“It’s a great program,” said 16-year-old Matilla Davis, a junior at Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School.
“If you want to do something in art, why not start young?” Davis said
Teens in the program sale their works to individuals and companies via exhibition sales and commissions.
“I was getting paid to do something I like to do, so I figured it was the best job ever,” Davis said.
But it wasn’t just about creativity and money. Apprentices also developed creative thinking and employment skills, and discovered and explored interests leading to new careers or educational choices.
Lakeisha Joyce – an 18-year-old Vashon High School grad, heading to Truman State University this fall – said she wasn’t into the arts before the program. Now she wants to own her own graphic arts company.
“It offers jobs and skills in different disciplines, and it gets your foot in the door,” Joyce said.
East St. Louis resident and apprentice, 18-year-old Kwame Watson, is also interested in graphic arts, which he will begin studying this fall along with animation at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Watson said he excited to learn something new.
“It was fun and exciting, so I didn’t look at it as a job – I looked at it as an opportunity,” Watson said. “At the end of the day, it isn’t about money – it’s about your passion and what you love.”
The young artist said he also benefited from the teachings of ubiquitous master caricaturist C’BABI BAYOC, one of several volunteer instructors.
“He was amazing,” said Watson, who drew a caricature of the caricaturist.
“He teaches all of the things he knows about the arts, and he told me a lot about business,” Watson said of working with the accomplished and prolific BAYOC.
Finding quality, committed artists is just one of many tasks for Louis ArtWorks Executive Director Priscilla Block as she runs the area’s largest public arts-based teaching organization.
As with most organizations of its kind, Block’s most pressing charge is getting and keeping funding sources for the program, which employs more than 130 (mostly urban) youths and 16 artists from six top arts teaching organizations. Those organizations present eight artistic disciplines, all of which are used to complete corporate, foundation and individual commissions.
Classes this year were held at the Commerce Bank Science and Education Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Centene Center for the Arts in Grand Center.
Block is especially proud of and charged with growing Boomerang Press, a another St. Louis ArtWorks program, where students design and sell greeting cards.
“Front pages say we’ve reached the highest unemployment rate in St. Louis in years, so it’s important for teens – especially urban teens and their families – to have a meaningful job,” Block said.
“Art is so important because it reflect the community they create it in and it gives our kids avenues to explore the history of communities.”
The program also counsels students with two or more quality-of-life barriers such as poverty, low academic achievement and other personal problems.
“People are dealing with a lot of things, so the program lets them let off a lot steam,” said Michele Fontaine, program counselor, who frowns on cutbacks in arts education.
“Studies say the arts and outlets for creativity enhance the overall academic experience, so cutting arts programs is like saying they aren’t important, but they are.”
