Summer Art Camp Ignites Imaginations

Summer Art Camp is underway at the Oskaloosa Art Center and Studios this week. Photo by Hailey Brown

By Hailey Brown

(Oskaloosa, Iowa) — The first week of Oskaloosa Summer Art Camp is almost through, and students ages 6-12 have been hard at work drawing, painting, creating surreal collages, and making their very own puppets. The magic takes place Monday through Friday at the Oskaloosa Art Center & Studios located within the alley in downtown Oskaloosa.

“We have a lot of new kids that we haven’t had at summer camp before,” said art instructor Briana Barlett, who helps with summer camp. Barlett also teaches classes at Oskaloosa Elementary School. “Each year the program has continued to grow.”

Having perfected not only their puppets but also a storyline, students of the art camp will walk the square on Saturday, June 9 for Art on the Square at 1:00 P.M., presenting their masterpieces during a one time showing.

Monday will be a new bag of tricks with children ages 6-12 again grabbing their paint brushes to create mixed media storyboards, wind chimes, and more puppets. This age group will get four weeks total of art camp classes to choose from before classes become geared towards the newest summer art camp age group: ages 13-16.

“The older group summer camp will be in July, so they’ve had a bit of time off from school to unwind and hopefully they’ll be ready to jump into something new by then,” Bartlett explained.

This summer at art camp, the theme is to “explore the pretend, the unknown, the imaginary, and mythical.” Those who can’t attend the full four-weeks or even one full week can mix and match which sessions they can participate by filling out a registration form on the Fine Arts & Cultural Events (FACE) of Mahaska website by visiting www.faceofmahaska.com.

When kids were asked during a visit by Osky News on Monday if they were having fun, all replied with a cheerful, “Yes!”