Another year of Camp Artpace has passed and it was full of smiles, questions, one-minutes sculptures, melted records, book binding, onomatopoeias, pounds of glitter, and learning to boot. We had the distinct pleasure of dreaming big with campers from all over the San Antonio area in two, one week camps.
It has been our goal at Camp Artpace to introduce the campers to contemporary art, working artists, a variety of art media, and of course Artpace. As part of this goal a number of our projects related to those exhibitions currently on view at Artpace. We watched Christian Marclay’s powerful, Guitar Drag, discussed his use of sound, onomatopoeias, and records that can be found in his other work.
Contin
uing our Marclay, music, and record theme we learned how to spin records with Ben Lurhman, aka DJ Benny. For many of our campers this involved learning what a record was and that people actually use them to listen to music. Every camper got a chance to learn the ins and outs of a turntable and acted as our very own tiny DJs.
The campers also got a tour from Katie Pell of her installation in Window Works that mixes custom car culture with kitchen appliances. Katie then came back to our student studio and led the campers in making customized kitchen flags that used images of the campers kitchens, collage, painting, gold leafing, and tons of glitter. From this activity I can tell you if you hired our campers to redesign your kitchen to expect lot of simmer, animal print, abstract art, and tons of color (come to think of it you should hire them).
So though it was exhausting and I may never get all the glitter off of me, but Camp Artpace was well worth it because of the excitement, joy, and energy that the next generation of creative people brought to Artpace these past two weeks. As we continue out summer we are looking forward to the Summer Artist-In-Residence opening on July 16th, the Texas Convening for Teens in the Arts, and Artpace Family Day, and we hope to see your there.
– Justin Korver, Artpace Graduate Intern
