Art Friendship Club lifts up and connects kids

On a warm September evening outside of Schack Art Center in downtown Everett, a group of teenagers hung around with gloves, masks and spray paint cans.

They were waiting to apply color to a wall-size canvas and learn how to bend letters under the instruction of Billy AYE147, a multi-talented graffiti artist, instructor and muralist.

AYE147 was leading a collaborative graffiti-painting lesson for Teen Night, a monthly Schack art education program. He encouraged kids who felt confident to step up to the canvas.

Donning rubber gloves and a facemask to keep out paint fumes, Kiyah Pidgeon was getting ready to take her turn.

“My mom did graffiti, and I always wanted to do it,” said Pidgeon, an eighth grader in Everett. Her best friend, Nick, was there with her.

Two other friends were in the back of the crowd when AYE147 began spraying the canvas with paint. The tall teen in a purple sweatshirt wrapped his arms in a bear hug around his shorter friend and hoisted her up so she could watch the graffiti magic happen.

Art has the amazing power to connect friends, lift up individuals and help people learn. In addition to Teen Night, Schack Art Center offers several art education programs that do just that. The Art & Friendship Club is one of them.

Now in its fifth year, the Art & Friendship Club is a partnership between Schack Art Center and Everett Public Schools. The idea for the program began when the impacts of the pandemic revealed huge gaps in learning and social skills for school-age children.

Tami Coffman, Visual & Performing Arts Facilitator P-12 for Everett Public Schools, and Raedle Alburn, Development and Education Director for Schack Art Center, knew art could make a difference. So they collaborated to develop a program that offers art education projects for third through sixth graders who need a little extra social and emotional support.

Counselors, teachers and administrators recommend students they think would benefit most from the Art & Friendship Club. Those students then meet weekly for six weeks with highly experienced Schack art teachers and Everett school counselors to work on projects that help them express emotions and feelings through art and develop positive relationships with others.

Through Art & Friendship Club, students are exposed to various art mediums, artists and art-making experiences. They learn art skills and techniques and create several art projects during club time.

Everyone works side-by-side on the projects – the youth, counselors and art instructors. That’s by design. “While creating something about you, you end up speaking about yourself,” says Alburn. “Many conversations come out of that.”

The social and emotional learning that occurs through making art and talking about feelings has helped club students cope with a variety of experiences outside of the program, according to Coffman. That’s no surprise. Many studies, including a new report from the Wallace Foundation, provide insights on the importance of engaging youth in the arts.

Funding for the Art & Friendship Club comes from a grant through the Puget Sound Taxpayer Accountability Account (PSTAA), which covers the cost of the program’s art instructors and supplies. The Art & Friendship Club annually serves about 100 kids in seven schools, which means the five-year-old program will have impacted about 3,500 students by the end of this academic year.

The club usually starts at the end of October or early November and runs for about six weeks, with an average of six to eight students in each group. Teachers and counselors work with two to three groups per session at each school. The year culminates with a field trip experience to Schack Art Center where students participate in a gallery walk, see their own art on display and watch a glass blowing demonstration.

“Students really look forward to Art & Friendship Club,” says Coffman. “It’s a place where they feel seen, heard and supported. It’s helped them grow not just in their artwork, but also in how they relate to others.”

How do kids feel about their experience? One fourth grader wrote: “I feel super and ridiculously excited when I come to Art Club because I love seeing my friends and making art and wish it would never end.”

And another: “I like coming into Art & Friendship because it is a stress reliever and Fridays are very stressful because my parents are divorced. It’s such a nice thing to have. “

Tina Hokanson, one of Schack’s instructors for the Art & Friendship Club, is passionate about giving individual attention to the kids in the program and ensuring they have a safe place where they can express their feelings.

In a video about the program, Hokanson describes what happened when one kid was absent from club because he was in the principal’s office: “So we made little cards that said, ‘We miss you.’ And he came back the next week and he said, ‘I like you and you and you.’ And he really started getting into the projects after that because we noticed him. I see you. And that is so important.”

Coffman has a photo that shows what happens when you notice kids for who they are. In that photo, smiling club members are gathered around a large poster hanging in a school hallway. The poster was made by one of the students. It says: “To make a painting, you need to be calm and peaceful and make it from the heart.”

The long-term investment that the Art & Friendship Club makes, Alburn explains, is to grow positive skills and stronger individuals. “When their bucket is filled,” she says, “they can give back.”

You can learn about all of Schack’s art education programs at schack.org/programs.

Brenda Mann Harrison is a freelance writer and former employee of The Daily Herald.