If you've been reading my blog regularly (though my program recaps are not always so regular), you'll know about a continuing program I've offered for tweens, Meet the Artist. Each month, I introduce an artist through a Powerpoint presentation. This covers some biographical information as well as major artworks and usually lasts about ten minutes. Then, we spend the rest of the program (it's an hour-long program) creating our own art in the style of our featured artist. I ran this program over the 2013-14 school year, as well as during the summer months, with consistent attendance. Because of this, and because it's a relatively easy to manage program, I decided to continue in the fall, despite my duties shifting more to collection development and less on programming.
I don't know if I've mentioned this, but we had a pretty strange fall. A lot of our regularly successful programs saw attendance drops and it seemed like every item we owned was sitting on our shelves. While our circulation numbers don't support the latter part of that statement, our programming numbers, at least some of them, do support the former. One of the programs to fall victim to this unfortunate occurrence was my own Meet the Artist. Over the fall, I ran three sessions of the program with lackluster attendance for all. I covered Alberto Giacometti (sculpture), Wayne Thiebaud (modern art), and Georgia O'Keeffe (nature and landscapes). The O'Keeffe program had the best attendance, so it may have been an issue of name recognition. But, with a general decline in attendance among all tween programs, I decided not to continue Meet the Artist for the spring. I'm considering resurrecting it for the summer, when we can usually guarantee attendance.
I'm really sad to see this program go. I'm no artist, but I had a lot of fun with it. Have you had successful art programs at your library?
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