ArtBridges teacher workshop integrates art into curriculum

Twenty-six teachers in grades K-12 from the county and city school systems are participating in the Tony Scott ArtBridges Teacher Workshop at The Studio in downtown Troy.

The two-day workshop is designed to integrate art into the curriculum and features visual artist-sculptor, Larry Percy, a 2013 Alabama State Council on the Arts Fellow, and Adam Vines, an award-winning poet and author of “The Coal Life.”

Morgan Drinkard, executive director of the Troy-Pike Cultural Arts Center, said the 2013 ArtBridges workshop provides participants with the opportunity to hear Vines read from his book of poems and interact with Percy and explore the spiritual and textural journeys in his clay sculpture.

“The teachers learn ways to motivate their students and also find their ‘inner artist’ and learn how to bring out the best in their students,” Drinkard said.

The workshop is led by Tara Sartorius, an artist and art educator who served as Curator of Education at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts for 21 years.

The workshop is an opportunity for the teachers to work with outstanding professionals and to learn ways to make the arts a vital part of the entire curriculum, Drinkard said.

“There are three phases to the Tony Scott ArtBridges Education Program summer teacher workshops,” Drinkard said. “We believe the first step in reaching students is to invest in teachers who will impact students for many years.

“So, the mission of the two-day workshop held each July is to collaborate with teachers on how to integrate the visual arts into their standards-based curriculum.”

Phase II of the ArtBridges program is to bring students to the Johnson Center for the Arts in downtown Troy.

“Students get the opportunity to see the art exhibits that align with the visual arts techniques being used in the classroom,” Drinkard said. “For many students, it is their first time in a museum and their first formal exposure to a collective body of art.”

Following the school tours, the Johnson Center staff and the featured artists plan a classroom activity integrating the chosen education standards.

“That classroom activity is Phase III of the Tony Scott ArtBridges Education Program,” Drinkard said.

More than 3,000 students, teachers and community members were exposed to the ArtBridges program in 2012. To date, Drinkard said more than 85 teachers have participated in the summer workshops.