Spring 2007
Art Camp is fulfilling a Dream
Kathy Bell
I was working my way down an impossibly crowded hallway when a familiar voice interrupted
my progress. “You know,” he said, “I believe this work is better than the contest we just held.”
How wonderful it was to hear my own thoughts echoed in another’s voice.
I had founded the Art Camp fifteen years ago for just that purpose of seeing students progress. So many young people with talent and interest in art were going through their entire education without a chance to learn how to use the gift they had been given. Some students had a different problem. They attended public schools where they had excellent art programs supplied to the hilt with all the materials needed, but they had never had anybody relate that study to the Bible.
The first three years I directed the camp, and each year we had nearly equal populations of homeschooled, Christian schooled, and public schooled young people. We had a chance to see both of these purposes in action among our campers. In the years since, public school representation has dropped to almost none, while the number of homeschooled students has grown. And each year we meet wonderful young people whom the Lord has endowed with real art talent and interest. A number of them have come each year they were in high school and once after they graduate. By the time they have been in camp five years, they have a pretty good idea what kind of art they like to do.
I remember how thrilled I was the first time I saw a former art camper enrolling as an art major
in school. That was the third year of camp. Now we have about a half dozen each year who come.
Most of them major in art, but some major in other disciplines as well. It’s like seeing old friends.
I need to return to my original musing over this year’s Camp Art Exhibition. The work really was better than the student contests we held each year. It was the clear outworking of that original purpose: to give young people who had never had an opportunity to study art in their own schools a chance to develop their talent. And this work, all done by teens in only one week, was a testimonial to the amount of learning that had taken place in that short time.
Learning about art is not our only goal, of course. We also work toward making Art Camp a spiritually challenging week. We have seen a number of campers saved and several dedicate their lives and work to the Lord. Triumphs like these are like icing on the cake. I think Art Camp will be one of the favorite memories of my career.