The Plaza Arts Center’s annual Art Camp for Kids took place July 17-21, in Eatonton.
“Children at this camp are doing different types of art and get exposed to different art media,” Plaza Arts Center Executive Director Susan Usry said. “There are a lot of activities, and the children are very good. They are interested and helpful. We had a really nice time with them.”
Activities at the five-day camp involved four varied workstations each day, where kids spent 40 minutes at each, followed by short breaks. The camp also included a free snack daily. About 45 kids from third through fifth grades participated this year.
“We have to put a cap on it because we can only have 10 to 12 kids in a group,” PlazaARTS Chairperson Janet Kelhoffer said. “We offer scholarships, and hopefully most people that want to come to camp are able to get in.”
All camp instructors and helpers are volunteers, with several helping out year after year, Kelhoffer said.
“Some were unable to participate [this year], so we got a few new volunteers, and they blended in very well,” she said. “Our high school helpers were a big help. Some of them came to our after-school art program as little kids,” she added, pointing to a wall of photos as proof.
Professional potter Elizabeth Collins Hanes has been an Art Camp instructor since it started a dozen or more years ago. “Nobody can quite remember when we started it,” Kelhoffer admitted with a laugh.
Two other volunteers, Sandra Gann, and Laura Hotzler, were at camp for the first time, although they participated in the after-school art program during the school year. Noel Schornhorst and Lu Feldman helped with both.
At the pottery station, kids played a sculpting game, where each would get a piece of clay and Hanes would call out the name of an object – for example, a mushroom or a taco – and campers would have to sculpt it within a few minutes. They also made pet portraits on clay and sculptures of their choice. The biggest project for this year was frog-themed pinch pots.
“I’ll fire them in the kiln and glaze them, and the kids will pick them up in a couple of weeks,” Hanes said. “That’s something useful that they can take home,” Kelhoffer said.
Activities at Hotzler’s and Gann’s stations included the decoration of gourds and making patriotic-themed bookmarks for the Veterans Home in Milledgeville.
“Kids decorated the gourds however they wanted, whatever they saw in their gourd. Someone had contributed them,” Hotzler said. She explained they tried this activity for the first time this year and it was so popular it will probably be added to the after-school art program during the school year.
“Maybe with a Thanksgiving or a Christmas theme,” she said.
At the cartooning station, kids designed characters and used them to make a comic book or buttons.
“They chose what to do with the character,” Schornhorst said. “They came up with their characters; only a couple of kids used established characters.”
Under Feldman’s guidance, the students also painted a flower in a vase, made floral wreaths, and tie-dyed shirts that they wore on the last day of camp.
“We painted the background color first, then let it dry overnight, then painted flowers and the vase,” Feldman said. “There was a vase of flowers in the center of the table, and they had to copy it.”
Soon after the start of the school year, a traditional After-School Art Program will continue to involve kids in various art activities. To learn more about this and other projects of The Plaza Arts Center, visit plazacenter.org.