Two celebratory events will coincide during the upcoming 2017-18 school year for Vashon Center for the Arts’ long-running Vashon Island Artists in the School (VAIS) program.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recently awarded VAIS a $10,000 grant to help fund its successful partnership between the school district and island artists. It also happens to be the 30th anniversary of the program.
“What’s so special about the timing is that it lines up with the anniversary,” said Kaycie Alanis, VAIS program manager. “Not only do we get to celebrate the program’s partnership, but parents of current students are happy to join in as they remember their own (VAIS) experience.”
Islanders Candy Gamble and Pam McMahon were early architects of the program that now boasts 20 to 25 projects each school year throughout the district, including FamilyLink.
Every spring, teachers look over the roster of 30 to 40 island artists who have signed up with the program. With their curriculum in mind, each teacher chooses an artist and then submits an application to VAIS. This year, 16 artists worked in the schools.
“Our focus is to bring art to kids in the classroom,” Alanis said. “It is unique in VCA’s programming. We bypass all the barriers. There are no applications, no fees, no auditions, no transportation issues. We bring art to the students. And the quality of the artists is phenomenal.”
Alanis cited a number of examples of the teacher-artist collaboration to create a memorable learning experience for the students. Island artist Britt Freda worked with third-grade students who were studying the environmental impact of plastic pollution. During the residency called “Environmental Impact Action Network,” Freda and the class built a 16-foot mural out of student-crafted tiles, which were then sold with proceeds donated to Zero Waste Vashon.
Artist Rose Belknap had all 100 Chautauqua fourth-graders paint an image of a local bird as part of a unit on birds of the area. At the high school, teacher Harris Levinson collaborated with island performing artist Kevin Joyce for a unit on 20th century Latin American culture and political dissidents. Joyce brought in theater and music to create a piece that the students then performed for other Spanish classes.
“There is so much high quality art happening in the school district,” Alanis said. “Ninety-three percent of Chautauqua students were involved in a residency. Overall, this was a lean year because we didn’t have an NEA grant. We had just over half the students.”
Another aspect of VAIS Alanis highlighted is the collaboration and support between students.
“I have to hand it to the teachers, artists and students for fostering the supportive, safe environment,” Alanis said. “Students are so wiling to take a risk. The artists say, ‘Let’s do this together,’ and the kids stretch themselves. They support each other.”
She gave the example from last year when Bill Jarcho taught how to create a graphic novel for curriculum about the expansion of the West and Lewis and Clark’s expedition. When he divided the kids into groups for the drawing, coloring and writing of the story, the students had their hands up not for themselves, but to say so-and-so should do the drawing because she’s really good and someone else is a great writer.
“They may never grow up to be an actor or graphic novelist,” Alanis said, “but through the program, they get to experience the value of taking risks and supporting each other so that down the road they know what it feels like to collaborate and have their ideas heard.”
