Apprentice artists find new ways to express themselves in remote program
By Roberta Gedert / The Blade
Sat, 08 Aug 2020 17:00:00 GMT
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It was business as usual for the Young Artists At Work apprenticeship program this summer.
Aniah Bell-Langster spent time taking photographs of Handmade Toledo, the Mud Hens stadium, and some of Toledo’s flourishing public art, for a 65-foot photo collage that will be installed at the Lloyd A. Jacobs Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center at the University of Toledo.
Sixteen-year-old Caralyn Haviland researched the history of the women’s suffrage movement – and learned about the men who supported those women — before creating a portrait of suffragist Alice Paul for a mural at Toledo’s League of Women Voters that celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
Nick Felaris assisted in the design of a mural for the facade of Ottawa Tavern, and collected and edited footage for a podcast featuring other YAAW apprentices who talk about the pandemic, the protests, and the impact it had on their art.
But there was a distinct difference this year for the program that the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo put in place more than two decades ago.
“This is the first time the program has been remote in 26 years,” said Natalie Gray, youth services manager for the Arts Commission. “So much of the summer was canceled, and I thought Young Artists At Work would be too, but it became clear that it was more important to hire people and also to occupy young people who aren’t in school and give them an outlet for their expression.”
The six-week paid program that started at the end of June and wrapped up this week involved 41 students from ages 14 to 18, from schools all over northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. Apprentices are paid $8.70 an hour; senior apprentices $9.13 an hour. They work 30-hour weeks, encouraged by their instructors to learn not only about art, but what it’s like to be committed to a job.
The operating budget for this year’s YAAW program was about $190,000, which was supported by about $66,000 from Lucas County Job and Family Services, $22,000 from Community Development Block Grant funding through Toledo’s Department of Neighborhoods, a $13,439 grant from the Ohio Arts Council, and private donations.
The program is known for having apprentices learn how to work with clients to put together public projects like the ones that happened this year at UT, the League of Women Voters and Ottawa Tavern. Normally, however, the teams of students meet up 30 hours a week at UT’s Center for the Visual Arts to brainstorm, banter, and create.
This summer, apprentices created makeshift studios at their homes. They participated in virtual Zoom and Google Meet meetings, and they learned how to use Procreate. The Toledo Lucas County Public Library donated iPads.
Given the nature of the pandemic, apprentices were the brains behind the project, but sometimes instructors put in the in-person work to make the piece come to life. For the floral-themed mural on the Ottawa Tavern wall, for example, instructors Emily Mata and Artist Traynum, who spent time in YAAW at the apprenticeship level in past years, donned masks and brought the concept to life for their younger peers.
And instead of a large-scale in-person art sale at the end of the YAAW program, guests will have to go online this year to see what the students have produced.
Despite the pandemic stifling their in-person plans and forcing meet-ups that looked more like the opening sequence of the 1970s Brady Bunch television program, organizers and students said something special happened.
Their output increased.
“The situation is kind of terrible, but it inspired us to create more things, which I can really appreciate. There’s always good with the bad,” said Bell-Langster, a graduate of Notre Dame Academy in her fourth year as a YAAW apprentice.
The students created the podcast, YAAW Talk, a two-episode program. They made a zine, Introspection, a 16-page online publication filled with original art, poetry and other verbal discussion. The teams made a documentary; they made music; they created time lapses.
“We actually have more content to share out than ever before, because it’s all for the most part, digitally created,” Gray said. “I’m really proud of the apprentices and impressed at the way the team pivoted on a dime to make this happen this year.”
Haviland said they were able to hear guest speakers from all over the country, artists, architects, and other creative artists who would jump on their meeting calls for virtual discussions but might not have been able to trek across the country for a meet-up.
Felaris, a senior apprentice who attended Perrysburg High School, said he found himself creating his first short animation film, Donut’s Day Out, and producing a music album, Alleycatface. The all-online aspect of the apprenticeship program might not have been as far-fetched as first thought, he surmised.
“It’s weird that alienation has driven us to do more projects,” he said. “But in reality, this is how independent art businesses have been running for the last decade. If I wish anything to come out of this, it’s that people recognize that and give it support.”