Imagine being a tween or teen and honing your artistic skills in the heart of a major city, learning from professionals in the field.
That’s the opportunity available for young people this summer at arts camps offered by the Boll Family YMCA. Younger students can participate in the “Arts Buffet” camp, which lets 11- to 15-year-olds experiment with pottery, visual arts, dance and theater. A lot of arts classes and camps for this age group are very specialized and don’t allow kids to experiment with different media; the two-week arts buffet camp gives them a good tatse of many different at forms. “As an artist, it makes me feel good to offer hat osrt of vaired programming,” says Maragaret Edwartowski, Y-Arts director.
The media camp, which is for high school students, lets them use the city as their backdrop for real filmmaking projects. They will conceive, shoot, edit and screen a short film of their own making, using the Y’s high-tech media lab. “Even though it seems very specific, it encapsulates things you’d get from other forms of art, as well as reinforcing that collaboration idea using project-based learning — and they do get quite a lot of camera work out in the city,” Margaret says.
Both camps specifically reach out to older kids because there are fewer quality summer options for them, especially with arts camps.”This lets is include this underserved age group and get to show them how many different things they can do here,” she says.
The Arts Buffet Camp runs from 9 am to 4 pm, July 9-19 with a showcase/exhibition on July 20 and costs $350 for members and $400 for non-members. Media Arts Camp runs 9 am-4 pm July 23 – August 9 with a screening on August 10.
Cost is $525 for both members and non-members. For more information, contact Margaret Edwartowski at medwartowski@ymcametrodetroit.org.