Spring Break
SoAD hosts Youth Arts Festival
Brittani McNeill
Issue date: 4/2/09 Section: News
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Over 100 visual and performing artists, from ECU and across the region, will share their talents with local children, students and the community. There will be many events for children to participate in, including wheel-thrown ceramics, traditional watercolor painting, weaving, felting, papermaking, printmaking, portraiture and other arts.
Children will also have the opportunity to create their own artwork with the help of ECU students, faculty members and professional artists.
The Youth Arts Festival was started by the former director of the School of Art and Design, Richard Tichich, and continues to be supported by the current director, Michael Drought. The administration, faculty and students in the SoAD work together to bring the artists together to provide this service to the community.
Dindy Reich, coordinator of the festival, said that the festival is "geared to the education and experience of [the] kids of eastern North Carolina."
"The festival was started in order to give art experiences to the kids of eastern North Carolina and to give them more access to the arts," she said. "Some of them have art in their schools, but they basically draw or color … they don't have access to doing all the different sorts of things [offered at the festival]."
Many different types of art will be presented, including storytelling, weaving, jewelry, portraits, caricatures, printmaking, pottery, clay works, painted guitars, Australian arts, dinkra printing, indigo dying and batik (a textile dying technique), quilting, murals and much more.
Professional artists from ECU's SoAd, Pitt County, the state of North Carolina and surrounding states will display their work for local youth.
ECU faculty members will present theatrical performances and host art displays, including a musical petting zoo, where kids can play with different instruments, silk painting, sock dolls, storybook theater, clay throwing, hand building and printmaking.
There will also be a live stage featuring different performers throughout the day, including musicians, dancers and a storybook theater.
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