McColl Center Collaborates with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Under the CMS Art funding program E3. The McColl Center and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools have the opportunity to collaborate in fulfilling the program’s mission: providing Exposure, Experience, and Education programs for students in Mecklenburg County.
Chosen schools are able to select between workshops in mixed media, photo-based processes, and printmaking. Each student group will have staff visit them to go over basics, practice techniques, and work on a final project that will be on exhibit at McColl Center in the spring!
McColl Center Studio Artists, Felicia van Bork, and Beck Douglass, the Youth Programs Director, have finished the first round of printmaking workshops with J.T. Williams Secondary Montessori while working alongside Pooja Nair, the lead middle school art teacher. In three classes of twenty-five eighth grade art students, students were introduced to the medium of monoprinting using gelatin plates. They experimented with various techniques and gained more knowledge about the various kinds of prints that could be created using gelatin plates. The students created a range of original prints by experimenting with color, texture, stencils, stamps, and image transfers under Felicia van Bork's direction and supervision!
Supported by the initiative, McColl Center and local artists are able to delve farther into multidisciplinary art forms. These workshops aim to stimulate students’ interest in the arts and to cultivate a desire to create and further explore a new medium or discipline. The next steps in the collaboration will be a Gelatin printing workshop with Laurie Smithwick in January/February, a Photo-based process with Mert Jones in January, and Mixed Media with Chad Cartwright in February.