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| Picture swiped from Veronica, but its okay we sometimes have the same students |
I've been instructing at WAM since 1998 and every year I look forward to the Summer Session more than any other semester in the academic year. From the second week of July until mid-late August WAM offers DAILY art classes from 10-230 with an extended day program that allows kids to work with the instructor assistants until as late as 5. One year they experimented with classes from 3-5 as well but it made for a very long day.
The benefit to these daily classes is that we meet everyday and therefore the lessons given are more intensive and with daily critique and routine there isn't time to forget processes we discussed as often happens with the once a week classes that run through the rest of the year.
Normally I do the entire session-- 10-230 each and every day allowing me to interact and work with a potential 200+ kids but this year with deadlines and WEREWOLVES OF WISCONSIN wrapping up I had to cut back a bit. I opted instead to only do the morning sessions, skip session 2 (two week duration) and then come back for the final 2 weeks with all day sessions. It's funny to watch some of the students and assistants lose their steam as the program goes on. For some of the kids spending all day every day for six weeks that becomes a lot of art making-- and that can be physically and mentally draining.
In between the daily workshops Veronica and I also did visiting workshops in such diverse towns as Chester, Chicopee, West Springfield, Nantucket, Mattapoisett, Pembroke, Wellesley and a few others where we worked with an additional 200+ students.
Yesterday this kind of frantic pace came to an end-- we've got one more Workshop next week out of town but after that it's gearing up for a trip and then Veronica's residency in Hardwicke.
The Summer Session is always my favorite-- and it's great to work with so many talented 11-17 year olds.
