Dallas kids got talent

    Sunflower, 2010, Photo: Portia Smith

When local Dallas kids were set free to explore their South Dallas community with digital cameras and portrait photographs in hand, the end result was something beautiful.  Through the Eyes of Our Children-Something Beautiful is one of the current exhibits at the Dallas Museum of Art.  This unique exhibition features 48 photographs and 33 collages from over 70 local school children.  The exhibition also includes 2 video installations.  The young artists are 4th and 5th graders from Dallas Independent School District schools including Charles Rice Learning Center, Joseph A. Rhoades Learning Center, Martin Luther King Learning Center, and H.S. Thompson Learning Center. 

   Green Growing Blue, 2010, Photo: Gissele Hernandez

Linking the arts and children together

Preservation LINK, Inc. is a Dallas education agency that provides media arts and scholastic programs for school children.  Through a partnership between Preservation LINK and Dallas elementary school teachers, students were able to participate in the Point of View (POV) Program and the Visual Literacy Workshop (VLW).  The students were instructed by photographer, David Herman, Jr.  The young artists who have photographs in the exhibit participated in POV which is a photojournalism course where 5th graders completed photographic, verbal, and writing activities.  The activities encouraged them to examine their education, community, culture, and social responsibility.   The young artists who have collages in the exhibit participated in VLW where 4th graders created a mixed media project that represents their thoughts on character, goal setting, and social responsibility.  

   For the People, 2010, Photo: Martha Mendez

A good eye for photography

Many of the young artists in the exhibit show the beginnings of good photography skills.  In Green Growing Blue, 2010 by Gissele Hernandez, the crisp, green grass not only meets the clear, blue sky, but the shot is framed by lifeless, bare tree branches.  She's captured the end of winter and the beginning of spring.  In For the People, 2010,  Martha Mendes places images of powerful quotations, herself, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Frida Kahlo together to create a collage that portrays her dreams, positive images in her world, and what is important to her.  Karlton Merrill, a teacher at H.S. Thompson Learning Center talked about his experience with the students and the VLW program.  Mr. Merrill said, "What I enjoyed most about the collage process was the children's eagerness to select images and then create, rearrange, construct, and deconstruct them until the art looked back at them and said, ' this is who you are, what you represent, and what you want to become,' ". 

Through the Eyes of Our Children-Something Beautiful is on exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art until August 29, 2010.  The exhibition programming includes tours and gallery talks led by the student artists for peer and adult museum visitors.  The tours and gallery talks will take place during First Tuesdays, Late Nights, and Family Celebrations.  For more information visit DallasMuseumofArt.org.

by Jeralan Minnick

dallasmuseumexaminer@gmail.com

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