The Arts Council is showing the impact of youth on our community throughout their Spring exhibitions Fayetteville FutureScapes, the CCS High School Juried Art Show, and The Fourth Grade Project.
To coincide with the 200th anniversary of Fayetteville’s visit from the Marquis de Lafayette, the Arts Council asked the youth artists at Greater Life of Fayetteville to imagine what our city will look like 200 years in the future. Led by President and CEO Georgeanna Pinckney, Greater Life of Fayetteville is a non-profit organization that educates and inspires at-risk and behaviorally challenged youth with innovative and culturally sensitive programs in order that they may thrive academically, socially, and morally. The students’ original artworks filled the Local Artist Spotlight Gallery on March 1-5 with images of flying cars zooming through a highway in the sky, innertubes gliding down the Cape Fear River, and visitors drinking some intergalactic coffee from “Space Rude Awakening.”
Innovative artistic expressions by the next generation continued into March with the return of the annual Cumberland County High School Juried Art Show. The Arts Council Main Gallery was bursting with digital art, sculpture, drawing, multimedia, and painting by students from Cumberland County Schools (CCS). Kemoya Hilton-Young, Administrative Assistant for CCS Arts Education, understands the importance of the Juried Art Show. “I want [the students] to feel pride and self-worth just to know that this is a step closer to where they want to be in life, and I want them to have that sense of ‘I made it,” says Hilton-Young. The annual show gives students a goal to work toward. “Especially if I have a beginning student, they are going to keep producing year after year and making it better and better. It’s a big deal,” remarks Manuela Smith, Visual Arts Teacher at Pine Forest High School. The High School Juried Art Show aligns with Youth Art Month across North Carolina with this year's theme "Healing Through Color."
In April and May, the Arts Council hosts The Fourth Grade Project, a traveling exhibition organized by ExhibitsUSA, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance. The exhibition features photographs by artist Judy Gelles. Gelles interviewed fourth-grade students from 11 countries and asked them the same three questions: Who do you live with? What do you wish for? What do you worry about? The exhibit allows students to speak in their own words alongside Gelles’s unique photographic style. “A notable commonality across all schools is that every group of fourth-graders has very little contact with or knowledge of people from cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds different than their own.” Gelles said “The project allows students to learn about others’ lives in a uniquely personal way and to use the project as a catalyst for their own
explorations.” The exhibition hopes to connect viewers to the individual stories of each student while allowing space for them to see connections to their own experiences. The Fourth Grade Project will be on display in the Arts Council’s gallery April 9 until May 28. For regular updates on the Arts Council, follow the organization @artscouncilfay on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and/or YouTube.