Art Buddy Spotlight: Doug Knutson, Photographer

Doug Knutson is the owner of Knutson Photography, LLC, and he has generously donated his time and talents as an Art Buddies photographer since we opened our creative doors 20 years ago.

Every season, Doug is there to capture memories of children building dreams during Art Buddies creating sessions, and takes special care during our mentor and mentee photo shoots on the last day of each program. He attends all of our volunteer networking and fundraising events, contributing to the energy and excitement as an active attendee and event photographer.

You'll see many of Doug's photos on our website, Facebook page, and Buddy Blog. It is truly the creative spirit of people like Doug who have helped Art Buddies last and make such a meaningful difference in the lives of kids and mentors for 20 years. (Thanks Doug!)

How would you describe Art Buddies to someone who has never heard of the program?

Art Buddies is a one-on-one creative mentoring program.

What has been your most memorable experience as an Art Buddies volunteer?

A student asked to take my picture. A short time later a magazine I photographed an assignment for asked for a portrait of me for their contributor’s page, so I cropped the photo he took and submitted it to the magazine. He got credit in the magazine and I made sure he received a copy of the magazine. He was an Art Buddy the next session and took more pictures with my camera of the other participants.

Why did you decide to become active with Art Buddies?

As a way to give back to the community.

What advice would you give to rookie Art Buddies?

Just jump in and be yourself!

Have you gained new friendships or expanded your network with adult Art Buddies during the program?

I have gained many new friendships and clients. I recently worked with Art Buddies volunteer and Advisory Board member Gerry Yumul on a project for the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.

 

Art Buddies accepts mentor applications every fall and spring. Learn how you can volunteer

with Art Buddies at http://www.artbuddies.org/volunteer/.

Art Buddies kicks off 2015 with advances toward expansion!

Scott Mikesh, President/Executive Director

As we gear up to start recruiting mentors for spring Art Buddies in Minneapolis, we're excited to report great strides toward expanding Art Buddies to St. Paul this year. Prospective schools are now being vetted to identify the most suitable St. Paul program partner for our fall 2015 season, to be announced this spring.

Special thanks to Program Director, Stephanie Vagle, and members of our Advisory Board for researching and working with those in the St. Paul school district who helped us identify potential program partners.

While there is no shortage of children who could benefit from Art Buddies, our charitable mission is to provide an empowering arts learning and creative enrichment experience for kids who might not otherwise have the means or access to art programs.

Art Buddies activities also require sufficient space to host our large creating sessions that involve up to 80 people (up to 40 children working one-on-one with up to 40 creative adults). Long-term storage for our large collection of art supplies and creative works is also required.

Fortunately, we have identified schools that could be a great fit, and are equally excited to offer Art Buddies after school for their 3rd-5th grade students next fall!

We are truly grateful for the hundreds of individuals, businesses and organizations that support Art Buddies each year, especially the many wonderful creative volunteers who provide the magic of mentoring by sharing their time and talents with kids who need them.

Here's to another great year of empowering more underprivileged children to discover their creative potential!

Please join our mailing list to receive the latest Art Buddies updates and volunteer opportunities: http://www.artbuddies.org/join-our-email-list.

10 Lessons the Arts Teach

At Art Buddies, we use the power of creativity, self-expression through artistic methods, and one-on-one mentoring to change children’s lives. The significant impact of the kind of arts learning provided by Art Buddies is highlighted here by the late Elliot Eisner, acclaimed professor of Art and Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education:

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid that fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable use to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA.

To obtain a digital version of this document, please visit www.arteducators.org/advocacy.