Arts on Cleveland provides one and a half hours of visual arts programming every week for approximately fifteen students, recommended to the program by local teachers as being especially gifted and interested in art.
Kathy Grady, leader of the Arts on Cleveland program, decided she would be an artist when she was five years old. She has a BFA in Communication Design from Pratt Institute. Kathy has worked as a graphic designer for corporate and nonprofit clients. She has also pursued her interest in fine arts in the areas of photography, jewelry design and most recently, fiber arts. Kathy is a member of Arterie, a fine craft collective, and also a founding member of Fringe, a collaborative fiber art group. Kathy helped to coordinate the Martin Luther King Quilting day at First UU. She also frequently donates handmade items to fundraising events in the community. As chair of the Green Sanctuary committee at First UU, Kathy is excited about merging her love of the environment and art in teaching the Arts on Cleveland program at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Essex County.
The goal of the class is to help each child find the artist within themselves and discover the joy of creating. The children will be exposed to works of the traditional art masters, global indigenous art, modern art as well as outsider art. Kathy believes that art should be accessible, and fueled by the artist's imagination rather than relying on specialized or expensive materials. The students will explore drawing, painting, collage, fabric art and sculpture from found objects.
The class culminates in an art show with an opening reception.
In 2006-07, Arts on Cleveland also included a photography program led by Howard Heyman. Mr Heyman started his career in the darkroom of Newsweek magazine. He became a staff photographer for the magazine in 1980 and ultimately chief of the Newsweek lab until he left the compny after 23 years to pursue photography on his own. Among his clients are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nursery Spectrum magazine, and the New York Public Library.
Arts on Cleveland is part of First UU's Urban Community Ministry, and has been funded in part by the Essex County Local Arts Program, the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, the Fund for Unitarian Universalist Social Responsibility, and the Unitarian Church in Summit.
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