PROVINCETOWN — One floor up from the stately galleries of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum are a series of classrooms with soft natural light. On Saturdays in the off-season they become a hive of creative activity as the museum’s Art Reach program brings students from across Cape Cod to free art classes here.
“The bus starts at 8:45 a.m. exactly and makes a bunch of stops,” says Avery Garrison, an eighth-grader from Centerville who is in their third 10-week semester with Art Reach. “It doesn’t feel like school, though — it’s a lot more fun.”
“Everyone here is looking forward to making art,” says Maia Rollins, also in eighth grade, who lives in Yarmouth and Eastham and is in her sixth semester in the program. “We use all kinds of materials and make full paintings from live models and still lifes. It’s always something different.”
The program is funded by the Mass. Cultural Council and by grants and private donations, says Grace Emmet, curator of community education at the museum. There are three programs underway this winter: “Art on the Edge” for 4th- through 6th-grade students, Art Reach 101 for students in 7th and 8th grades, and Art Reach Studio for high-schoolers.
This January and February, the middle-school students have been painting brightly colored still lifes to be displayed at the Liberty Commons rehabilitation clinic in Chatham. Bringing cheerful art to that facility is the Eagle Scout project of Leo Riikonen, an eighth-grader from Eastham who has been an Art Reach student for three years.
“Eagle projects are about giving back to the community,” says Riikonen, a member of Boy Scout Troop 71 in Chatham and Sea Scout Ship 72 in Orleans.
Instead of installing park benches or trail signs, Riikonen wanted to make a change at the rehabilitation facility where his grandparents had stayed recently.
“There’s a bunch of empty wall space there, and most people are immobile and can’t really leave,” Riikonen says. “I wanted to bring some happiness to the people staying there with these joyful still lifes.”
Riikonen sought funding for canvases and frames from the Adams Masonic Lodge in Wellfleet, where he had previously volunteered, and got permission from Liberty Commons to install the paintings. Some of his fellow Boy Scouts will paint canvases, too, he says, as leading other Scouts is a requirement for Eagle projects.
Riikonen’s grandparents were in the rehabilitation center for a couple of months, he says. His visits there, and his years in art class, convinced him that bright colors could help cheer the patients.
Agata Storer of Wellfleet teaches the middle-school Art Reach classes and says the program includes a wide range of media. “We do printmaking and painting,” she says. “We sculpted with clay, with cardboard, and with natural materials we found in the Beech Forest.”
The students also used drawings to make short handmade animations, Storer says. Local artist Mischa Richter spoke to the group about how his movie I Am a Town grew out of his career in photography.
“We can order anything we need, good-quality materials, and the kids can really learn so much,” says Storer.
There are 16 students in the middle-school class this semester, and on the Saturday when the still lifes for Riikonen’s project are being completed everyone is focused on the work.
“We’re making paintings with lots of color so that the people in the nursing home, when they walk by, can say, ‘Oh, look at this beautiful painting!’ and not be sad,” Garrison says. “It’s really cool.”
