Coming Up Taller Award Bestowed
On Wednesday afternoon 13-year-old Shiann Gonzales enjoyed a slice of pizza in the Albuquerque airport before boarding a nonstop f light to Washington, D.C. This would be her first time in an airplane, and she was pretty excited.
“I’ve never been out of the state of New Mexico,” said the Ortiz Middle School seventh-grader by phone, minutes before the boarding call. “I’m going to the White House. That’s awesome.”
For the past two summers Gonzales has participated in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s Art and Leadership Program, which was recognized Friday by first lady Laura Bush in the East Room of the White House. The program is one of 19 youth arts and humanities program around the country that is being honored with a 2008 Coming Up Taller Award and receiving a $10,000 cash prize.
Coming Up Taller is an initiative of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities that recognizes outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of American youth. More than 350 nominations for the award were received this year.
Gonzales, who likes to draw with oil pastels, was selected as the youth representative of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s summer program that was founded by the museum’s director of education and public programs Jackie M in 1998. Jackie M accompanied Gonzales to Washington.
“We had 80 girls and 50 boys in the program this past summer,” explained Jackie M. “Some were new, and others like Shiann had also participated last year. The program is designed to nurture leadership skills in artistically inclined children from low-income families facing at-risk challenges. It’s a gender-based program. Boys and girls are taught separately. Boys work with male artists, and girls work with female artists.”
Santa Fe Public School art teachers recommend students in the fifth and sixth grades to the program, which lasts two weeks. Local professional artists, writers and musicians are hired to lead exercises and activities that include theater games and drawing and portraiture sessions.
Since the cost per student exceeds $750 and students attend the program free of charge, it takes considerable fundraising annually to pay for expenses. Jackie M says the program is also supported by foundations and money from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s educational budget.
Introducing budding young artists to new ideas and art supplies is also part of the curriculum. “The projects we do with the kids, which have evolved through the past 10 years, are designed to use art as a way to self-discovery,” Jackie M added.
Gonzales, who says she has developed better self-esteem through participating in the Art and Leadership Program, remembered to take a camera on the trip so her mother, stepfather and three brothers can share the excitement of the experience with her.
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum will host a free public reception honoring the program and its participating students and teachers at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s Education Annex, 123 Grant Ave., from 2 to 4 p.m. Nov. 23.
