Learning in Art & Culture Program (LACP)
The VSC Learning in Art & Culture Program began as a response to the loss of state funding for the arts in our local primary schools in 1992. With the support of the Windham Foundation, the Randolph Hearst Foundation, the A.D. Henderson Foundation, the Canaday Family Charitable Trust, the Mergens Foundation, the Green Mountain Fund, Merchants Bank and the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, it has since provided more than 200 JES students each year with weekly art instruction, making it possible for rural, predominantly low-income students to receive formal art instruction in the making and history of visual art. Program Coordinator and VSC staff artist Arista Alanis ensures that JES students are exposed to VSC’s international creative community by inviting artists-in-residence into the classroom to present their work and to offer hands-on instruction. Building on the innovation and success of this program, VSC has expanded its reach, offering residency fellowships to artists and writers who teach visual art and English (with an emphasis on single-subject K-12 public school teachers) as a way to revitalize their creative process and inspire their teaching practice. For a virtual tour of the classroom and interviews with alumni of the Program, please view “The Learning in Art and Culture Program: 2009-2010” video.
Johnson Elementary School
Through studio tours and talks with artists-in-residence, JES students gain access to working artists from a wide range of backgrounds, traditions, and disciplines and come to understand and appreciate art as both a viable vocation and an integral aspect of the human experience.
Artists and writers from urban and rural areas in 48 states, as well as from 40 foreign countries, have been given the opportunity to teach in local Johnson classrooms. With visitors from Austria to Uzbekistan, the students learn to connect geography with culture and to understand culture through art.
We enjoy sharing this unique program. Month-long internships have been sponsored by regional art councils who want to use our cultural arts curriculum as a model for their own “art in the schools” initiatives. Day visitors are also welcomed and can be arranged by calling the VSC development office, (802) 635-2727.
Support the JES Art & Culture Program.
Teacher Fellowships Program
Thus far, VSC has offered residency fellowships to 19 visual art and English teachers from Alaska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and throughout Vermont. LACP Teacher Fellows are given space, time and creative community to re-engage with their studio practice, as well as opportunities to share their work during resident slides night, resident readings and open studios, and to be mentored by the six distinguished Visiting Artists and Writers who are in residence each month. In order to share the impact of the studio residencies with the Teacher Fellows’ students, VSC is available as a resource during the post-residency school year. The Studio Center is also proud to partner with St. Michael’s College to offer Fellows the option of post-residency support to develop creative curricula and earn graduate credit. For more information, contact Ryan Walsh in the development office at (802) 635-2727 ext. 218.
Donor Information
$25,000 will provide instructor stipends for one year, $8,000 will supply 6 classes annually with rich materials for multicultural art projects, $3,950 will sponsor a 4-week LACP residency fellowship for a visual art or English teacher, $800 will underwrite Johnson Elementary School’s annual Fine Arts Night, $600 will support a year’s worth of fieldtrips for local students.
