By Daily Press staff
This summer has seen a group of young artists bloom, thanks to St. Joseph Center.
St. Joseph Center transformed its general activity room into an art gallery earlier this month to showcase the creative talent of youth from the Santa Monica and Venice communities. Eleven children ages 6 to 12 spent three days a week for five weeks exploring various mediums, including beadwork, Chinese scroll painting and tie-dye.
Led by St. Joseph Center staff member Joshua Fontanez, the children built vejigante carnival masks, dragon-like papier mache creations from southern Puerto Rico. With the help of local poets Marc Wiseman and Michele Carter, the children wrote, illustrated and bound shorts books of poetry.
“It was a chance for the children to explore cultural traditions and combine them with their own imagination,” said Fontanez, who organized the summer art classes.
St. Joseph Center’s Family Center offered the summer arts program free to low-income families.Year-round, the Family Center serves more than 800 working poor families with multiple programs for children including after-school tutoring and mentoring for teenage boys and girls. For more information, visit www.stjosephctr.org. The sea is falling
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 23, 2006. Read the original PDF.