The artwork of talented young people in the Alameda area will be on display on June 2 at the Alameda School Auditorium.
The art show is being organized by the Swallow’s Art Nest, which is owned by Alameda artist Judy Swallow. The reception will run from 2-4 p.m., with pictures and presentations at 3 p.m.
About 30 students from four to 18 years of age will participate, as they have been involved with the youth workshops for the Swallow’s Nest. They come once a week for an hour for art lessons.
Swallow said the artwork looks “fabulous.”
“It’s quite amazing how the scribbles and the work they’re developing turns out in the end,” said Swallow. “We do a lot of preliminary things before they have an exhibit piece, so I teach the basics of drawings, perspectives, shading, animals, birds, plants, nature, character development, cartooning, collage and 3-D clay.”
They also work in a variety of mediums, including pen and ink, prism colour, acrylic watercolour and graphic pencil.
“You’ll see a variety of that at the art show,” said Swallow. “There’s something for everybody there as far as looking at the different genres and the different mediums they can work with.”
Ultimately, though, the Swallow’s Nest wants to make art a fun and enjoyable experience for youths.
“They’re wanting to show their best, and when they get in that creative space and that mode of creating, it’s just wonderful to watch and wonderful to see the results,” said Swallow. “And most of the time, they’re pretty thrilled with what they accomplished.”
Many of the kids are from the Alameda area, but they also attract some from Arcola, Redvers, Oxbow, Carnduff and other communities.
The kids find it gratifying to see where they started and how their artwork has finished.
The art show is non-competitive and not adjudicated, which gives them the freedom to create. There’s no goal other than to get better creatively.
“Some of the kids have been coming for a lot of years, since they were small, and this year they were chuckling over the kind of work they did when they were smaller, looking back on some of our adventures, and they see their own progress, which is really cool,” said Swallow.
Swallow doesn’t draw on their artwork to help them improve. She might use a tracing paper that she might put over their art and help them see where they can improve.
The art show will typically attract about 200-300 people, with family and friends, along with community members in attendance.
Swallow is well-versed in hosting art shows. She did it from 1976-1986, and then she stopped for a while. In that time period, she was still involved with the art world, including illustrating books and painting The Vanishing Valley series, which was a pictorial history of the Moose Creek and the Souris Valley regions before the construction of Alameda Dam.
In 2004, she started hosting art shows every three years. That continued until 2014, and now she does them annually.
