Why is it important to introduce children to art and beauty? In Pittsburgh, during the 1960s, there was a self-described “black kid growing up in a bad neighborhood” who walked into a sun-filled schoolroom to find an art teacher making pottery. As 66-year-old Bill Strickland tells the story, he became mesmerized with pottery and lost himself in this active and tactile art form. “He saved my life, man,” Strickland recently told Financial Times. He feels that every individual should have a similar experience.
Strickland has used this philosophy to inspire and change the lives of kids. At his Manchester Birdwell Training Center, the programs unconventionally combine art and vocational training. Students are introduced to art in an open and sunny environment. Strickland says that involving them in the arts can cure the “cancer of the spirit” that has stricken so many inner-city Americans.
Unfortunately, even those who are not poor sometimes have little exposure to art. In many public schools, even here in Santa Clarita, art classes are at the low end of public school funding. However, people like Strickland have shown that an active experience with art improves traditional academic success. Students who attend Manchester Birdwell’s after school art programs have a high school graduation of 98 percent, twice the local average in Pittsburgh.
To bring the influence of art into a child’s life is one of the objectives of The ARTree. Key to our philosophy, art and beauty need to be part of everyone’s life, especially kids. Even though our programs reach a small number of young people, we hope that the efforts will make an outsize contribution to a child’s appreciation of beauty, and to an enriched adulthood.
For more information on ARTree classes, and to find out how to support us, visit www.TheARTree.org.