McKitrick artists show their work in a real downtown gallery

A reception for the McKitrick Community School Creative Kids art show was a busy place Tuesday afternoon of last week as students and parents gathered at the ARC gallery in downtown North Battleford.

Making use of a grant from Creative Kids, a program sponsored by SaskCulture, McKitrick School started an after-school art club several years ago.

Retired teacher Joanne Rivers-Wing says, "It began as another way to fill a void for certain students, who were not involved in other healthy after-school activities, who could use the extra self-esteem boost and benefit from the extra attention from school staff."

She adds, "Over the years, local artists from the community were invited to instruct various art medias to the students in the program. I retired from McKitrick School last June and have continued on in the Creative Kids after-school program as a local artist instructor. Since I am a member of ARC, we thought it a unique opportunity for these students to present their work in a real, downtown art gallery."

Presently, the club is being attended by students aged six to 12, says Rivers-Wing. The parents are involved as well as each child is registered individually through the Creative Kids program and parental approval is part of the process.

The students meet once a week and work in a variety of disciplines. Rivers-Wing teaches pottery. Other artists who have participated include Rosemarie Stadnyk and Kamila Badura, also members of ARC.

On hand for the reception, Badura, who worked with the children on collages and ink on tile and paper, said she was very proud of the young artists and enjoyed working with them. One project she had them working on was to make a collage based on a famous old masters painting, and the results were inspired, she said.

Also on hand for the afternoon were two Grade 4 students tasked with acting as hostesses for the length of the reception. Mekdes and Crissy are both in their first year of art club and are interested in attending again next year.

Explaining her technique in impressing a pattern into a clay piece she had done, Mekdes said, "I was just putting different shapes on it, then little cubes, circles and flowers."

They she glazed it and her pottery teacher fired it in her at-home kiln.

"I put a light blue colour and it turned out dark blue. It was a surprise?" she said.

Why did she join art club?

"Because I thought it would be pretty cool to see what I could make afterwards."

Each of the 13 artists displaying at the show had several items in various media.

Crissy pointed out one of her ink on paper and one of her pottery pieces.

"I like making beaches so I decided to make this one, it's ink on paper."

She matched it up with a fish that she used a rolling pin with designs on it to decorate and painted after it was "dried up."

She said, "I used different colours to make the different shades of blue."

Crissy says she joined the club because, "I love art."

During the exhibition, students from McKitrick had an opportunity to tour the artist run centre, seeing a variety of art being created by member artists.

There was also a generous amount of cookies to be eaten.