March 1, 2013
Friday marked the first day of both Youth Art Month and Music in Our Schools Month. Albemarle County Public Schools kicked off both with a mix of mediums and music.
County Schools celebrated its 20th annual Visual Arts Festival with an opening reception for Youth Art Month, filling the CitySpace Gallery with student artwork from all 26 county schools.
County schools held the event with the Piedmont Council for the Arts.
The Monticello High School Chamber Music class accompanied the show.
It featured artwork from students in preschool through high school and mediums including watercolor, photography, mosaics, paper collage, scratchboard drawings, and pen and ink drawings.
One student with work featured in the exhibit was Kate Yow, a sixth-grader at Sutherland Middle School. “It’s really fun. I’m really glad that it’s here. And I love to see all the other paintings,” said Yow.
Artists provided written statements providing background such as their inspiration, challenges, skills they learned, and the cultural contexts for their work.
“You can really hear the student voices, if they’re not here physically in the room, you can still hear what inspired them,” said Cyndi Wells, Cyndi Wells, Lead Coach & Fine Arts Facilitator for Albemarle County Public Schools.
“Art and music are things that happen all year round and they’re very important to educating the whole child, whole student. And there’s things that students, even if they’re not going into music and art for careers, they learn things and skills that they can apply throughout their lives,” said Wells.
To see the drawings, paintings, and other works, you can visit not only CitySpace, but also Fashion Square and CHO. The CitySpace exhibit will run March 1-28. Student artwork will also decorate Fashion Square March 3-24 and the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport through April 10 at the exhibit “Airportraits.”
