Carnegie Arts Center had an incredible week working with the Alliance Recreation Center’s Summer youth camp. Visiting artist Professor Sandra Williams from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and two Honors students traveled across the state to bring “Stay Wild” Sidewalk Safari to Alliance, NE. The project was the brainchild of Professor Williams who had developed the project initially in partnership with the Museum of Nebraska Art. Her exhibit, “Anthropocene Blues” opened at MONA while they were closed for COVID in 2020. The museum proposed having a virtual lecture series. However, Professor Williams believes, “Community based arts have always been, and always will be, part of my creative agenda. Instead of a ‘top down’ lecture I prefer that the community explore the role arts play in creative placemaking, having the tactile experience of handling ‘cut paper’ in the form of stencils, and engage with the topic of animals in a creative manner. ‘Stay Wild’ provides an opportunity for public interaction with my work in a safe, socially distant manner. Although necessitated by the Museum’s closure, the model can apply in other contexts.”
After successfully conducting the project with multiple schools in Lincoln, Professor Williams reached out to the Carnegie Arts Center to see if they would be interested in bringing the project to our community. Carnegie Arts Center Director, Kyren Gibson, studied under Professor Williams during her undergraduate study at UNL, served as Williams’ UCARE assistant and teaching assistant for “Art in the Community” class. Professor Williams has continued to mentor Gibson well past her years as Gibson’s advisor and teacher. Gibson jumped at the chance to work with her mentor again on such an incredible community arts project. Carnegie received grants from the Dillon Foundation, the Snow Redfern Foundation, the Mission Store, Kimmel Foundation, and C.A. Story Foundation which funded the supplies and visiting artist fees for the program. Professor Williams was able to bring two UNL honors students, Gannen Ingalls and Cicely Pickel, with UNLCARE funds to work with Alliance Recreation Center’s students.
Professor Williams designed seven stencil sets of endangered animals including a Tiger, Tree Frog, Axolotl, Black Footed Ferret, Panda, Big Horn Sheep, and Rock Hopper Penguin. Each stencil set included three layers with different levels of detail to create depth and contrast in the images. Six sets were created for each animal. In total, Professor Williams created 42 sets which equaled 126 total stencils. The ARC’s total attendance of 60 youth were broken into classes of 15. The groups rotated throughout the morning, pairing off in twos and threes with the instructors and ARC teachers. The instructors first demonstrated how to use the cans of spray chalk over the layers of stencils to create crisp outlines. Students worked in teams and took turns selecting their colors and spray chalking the stencil layer while their teammates helped hold down the stencils. Each finished stencil set was a collaborative masterpiece. It was essential to Professor Williams’ process that the children were able to maintain the decision-making power by selecting the animals they wanted and the color combinations. The results were unexpected and stunning. Quotes from students during the project included a shouted, “This is the best day ever!” and “I can’t believe you are letting us do this!” Executive Director of the Alliance Recreation Center Mara Anderson stated, “Watching the kids have fun is always rewarding, but seeing the magic Carnegie Arts Center and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln staff and students shared with our Summer camp was truly something spectacular. We cannot say ‘thank you’ enough to everyone. The kids had a great time, and they were so excited every day that week for all the art projects.” We were pleased to hear that students were eager to pull their parents out to the walking path to show off their masterpieces.
After two days of spray chalking and stenciling, the students were given fact sheets about the different endangered species. The youth that were old enough to write created haikus about the animals, and the younger students created beautiful drawings of the animals and recited facts they had learned. In the end students asked to keep the fact sheets and take-home extras to learn about all the animals. The Carnegie Arts Center wants to thank its incredible program grantors for their arts education support. They would also like to thank their operational grantors, the Nebraska Arts Council, Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and the Peter Kiewit Foundation. Last, but certainly not least, thank you to the local businesses that support our organization through sponsorships. And a final big thanks to our June sponsor, WESTCO of Alliance!
