Music, art and theatre were the topics of interest on the campus of Bluefield College, July 11-15, but not for the typical college student. Kids, ages four to 13, were exploring the subjects during BC’s summer Fine Arts Camp.
“All kids love to create,” said Fine Arts Camp art instructor Sharon Altice, “but unfortunately in school you don’t always get the opportunity. It’s so academic, and you don’t get the time for things like this (the fine arts).”
From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, Monday through Friday, the local children created art, produced music, and performed drama as part of the annual community event sponsored by BC’s Fine Arts Community School (FACS). Like all FACS offerings, the summer Fine Arts Camp is designed to give area kids the opportunity to explore and study the arts with guidance from mentors who have appropriate training and experience.
“We’ve been making butterflies and click beetles and spiders,” said camper Allen Comer, a seven-year-old from Bluefield, Virginia. “We learned about them in books and then made them.”
During the morning sessions of the Fine Arts Camp, the older children explored music. In the afternoons, they studied art and theatre. They ended the week with a fine arts program for parents to show off all they had learned and created.
The pre-schoolers spent just the mornings on the BC campus, but plenty of time to discover music and create art.
“I learned a lot about music,” said five-year-old Ella Webb of Bluefield, West Virginia,” and at art camp I drew pictures and learned how to make a click beetle.”
The weeklong Fine Arts Camp is just one of several summer fine arts adventures scheduled by the college for kids in the community. Earlier this summer, the school hosted an art class in clay and a course in pottery; camps for math, science and criminal justice; and seminars on DNA and the human body.
The final offering of the summer will be a Theatre Camp, July 18-22, featuring the exploration of mask construction, stage makeup and set construction, and rehearsals for a culminating performance of Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book.”
For more information about Bluefield College’s Fine Arts Community School, including family discounts, payment plans and registration fees, contact the FACS office by phone at 800-872-0175 (x4246) or 276-326-4246, or visit the Bluefield College web site at bluefield.edu/camp.