Colorful Children's Art Enlivens the Shake Rag Grounds

Aww, summer is over...and the sea of Summer Program children are back in school. Thanks to Diane Sterba, our Youth Program Director, for putting together a great summer of youth classes - close to 350 K-6 and Middle School children participated in 42 classes!  Wow. Sure is quiet without all that kid energy. But not for much longer...

The Fall Youth Program will be starting soon. Registration is now open. Classes are listed online on our Youth Program Page.

In the meantime, we can enjoy all the great art the children have added to the Shake Rag grounds:

There are four terrific bottlecap art pieces up alongside the walkway from the barn to Alley Stage inspred by Michelle Stitzlein's delightful Bottlecap Art Projects.

If you visit Shake Rag, be sure to wander up that way and see these whimsical creations.

In the summer of 2010, Lifka Bennett, a 5th grade teacher in Mineral Point Elementary School, took Diane's "Access Your Creativity" class for teachers. She needed a lesson plan to implement during the summer program Free Arts Camp and wanted to do something with recycled art, so Diane showed her Michelle's projects which she had just discovered online.

Lifka loved it.







Lifka's husband, Chuck, cut the butterfly, caterpillar, and flower shapes which Di and Lifka painted. Then the bottlecap collecting started.The summer kids glued on the what had been collected so far but they needed LOTS more.

So when school started in the fall Lifka had the whole school collecting caps! The 5th graders glued on the remaining bottlecaps when they came to Shake Rag for fall and spring clean up (helper days that we ALWAYS look forward to and for which we are SOOOO grateful).

Decorating the birds

This summer's Free Arts Camp project was painted ceramic birds that were installed on the railroad tie wall to the side of Federal Spring. Sculptor and ceramic artist, Bill Grover, created the bird forms, helped the kids decorate them and installed them on the wall.

Birds installed on the wall

And, last but not least, the wonderful painted pickets leading up to Ellery House:

Visit our Youth Summer 2011 Photo Gallery to see lots more photos of the Youth Summer Program.