By Gillian Brunette
The students at Spruce Glen Public School will have a greater understanding of the arts following the completion of Touch the Sky, a project currently underway at the school.
The project has been developed in conjunction with two arts organizations – the Huntsville Festival of the Arts and the Muskoka Lakes Music Festival (MLMF) – which together are providing the funding, inspiration, organization and procurement of the various artists.
Touch the Sky is a six-day initiative (spread over a three-week period) that matches professional Muskoka visual and performing artists with Spruce Glen students. The artist works with the children, teacher and parent/community volunteers to provide hands-on instruction in a specific art discipline.
Each class gets six sessions with the same artist and their teacher.
KALEIDOSCOPE: This collage of images represents Kaleidoscope, a multimedia project currently underway at Spruce Glen Public School. Titled Touch the Sky, the project brings students, teachers and area artists together, culminating in an exhibition.
The program began on March 22 and runs for two hours every Monday and Thursday, after which workshops, performances and an exhibition of the students’ works will be showcased at the Algonquin Theatre on April 16.
Fourteen area professional artists are involved. In addition, Gerry Lantaigne, the creator of the Group of Seven murals hanging in various locations around town, is working with a select group of art-focussed students to create a mural that is reflective of the project’s theme.
“Each of the classes provided input as to what they would like to see in the mural, which will be painted in the gym. When completed, the mural will be affixed to the school as a permanent reminder of the students’ efforts,” said Huntsville Festival of the Arts general manager Rob Saunders.
Kaleidoscope is the brainchild of Port Carling resident Gayle Dempsey, who is director of festival development for the MLMF.
She has been developing the program for about six years with view to bringing the arts into the schools and assisting teachers in delivering the arts curriculum.
“I understand about budget cuts and I was trying to provide exciting, creative arts opportunities,” she said.
The Kaleidoscope project was first introduced at Pine Glen Public School about four years ago. It was titled Songs of the Earth and at that time the Huntsville festival assisted with some funding.
Since then the program has been introduced three more times in area schools. “Spruce Glen is the fifth,” said Dempsey.
This is also the first time that the two arts organizations have combined to present the program, said Saunders. “The Huntsville Festival of the Arts is the lead sponsor, but the whole program is based on the framework created by the Muskoka Lakes Music Festival.”
“Partnership is the real key for sustainability of the program. Our festival can’t meet the needs of the whole district,” Dempsey added.
The artists involved in the project are paid for their time, said Dempsey. “It’s important to honour that.”
The cost of providing the program is about $12,000 of which the HFA has funded $4,000. Funding is also provided by the Trillium Lakelands District School Board out of its program enhancement fund and some federal and provincial dollars were also made available. In addition each student pays $10 to help offset the costs.
The Trillium Foundation, which has provided funding in the past, has shown an interest in expanding the project to make it available to schools across Ontario.
“That they are interested in providing this provincewide is exciting and overwhelming,” Dempsey.
Meanwhile, in the short term, the goal of the two arts groups is to present Kaleidoscope in all the schools in Muskoka.
