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We’re cooking up a new afterschool arts program, which coincides with our regaining access to the Park House for children’s art education (its original purpose when it was remodeled some years ago). We were recently awarded a grant from the Marion Cultural Development Corporation to help pilot this effort, and would like to share a vision for what this offering will look like! Here’s a sample from our grant submission: In Q1 2025, the Silverton Arts Association will hire its first executive director to strengthen the administration and funding for our growing arts programs in rural Marion County. With this key leadership role in place, we’ll be able to reopen our Children’s Art Education Center, closed to programming since Covid. Additionally, board members who currently volunteer to run the admin functions of the Silverton Art Center will be freed up to develop and restore children’s education programs. This includes a much-anticipated after school arts program modeled after the Jim Henson Creature Workshop where kids will create creature design, practical effects, filmmaking, comics, and music. Aside from teaching kids storytelling in multiple forms (an essential career skill no matter their future), media from the Creature Workshop will be a key asset in driving interest towards the Art Center and the beautiful community around it. Imagine a video segment where kids and puppets interview a poet, then cut to hand-drawn motion graphics visualizing the poem itself — then a naturalist science piece where a puppet leads a crew of kids on a mushroom hunt at Silver Falls State Park — then a kid having a fireside chat with a senior citizen on a topic that links past and present concerns. Video segments would run at the Art Center as well as online at a dedicated website. This program will begin in the second half of 2025 with two teachers hosting after school workshop sessions, and expand to three teachers and up to 24 kids making up a rotating production crew by 2026. Lead teachers will include Jonathan Case (current president of the Arts Association), a graphic novelist with a background in film and creature effects, and Michael Turner, a documentary filmmaker and musician who ran a successful youth film camp at our Art Center in summer 2024 (these student films were featured in our local Silver Falls Film Festival). Simone Stewart, board member, actress, and executive director of our Senior Center, will also support the project with her experience working in multiple performing arts and film-based nonprofits around the state.
Keep a watch in the Newsletter and on our social media channels for more details and info on how to register your child for this exciting program! And thanks to Marion Cultural Development Corp for their support!
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