Showcasing Talent: Opening Reception for RoCA Student Exhibit, Camp Open House

BY JANIE ROSMAN

Paintings, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, glass and more showcasing students’ work drew crowds to Rockland Center for the Arts last Sunday,

“We planned it (art show) with the camp open house so the public can enjoy the show and learn about our summer programs,” Camp Director and Program Coordinator Amy Alinkofsky said.

The exhibit — including art made through its Community Engagement Programs in East Ramapo, funded by Wells Fargo and First Niagara Banks — is on view in the Emerson Gallery, Gallery One and Gallery Two through May 31.

Featured were nature sculptures patterned after RoCA’s nature exhibit, and next week students will make terrariums, which are “like mini-gardens with their own ecosystems,” Art School Director Daly Flanagan said

RoCA’s community involvement is especially helpful for students whose schools have no art programs and/or limited afterschool programs because of limited budgets. A grant allowed it work “with Spring Valley High School students in an after-school art program during the second semester,” Principal Karen J. Pinel said. “They met Daly Flanagan and Laurette Fischer, an art teacher at the school.

Josue Thaxton, who took classes three times a week, created a mixture “of a rocky, sandy texture so the children can climb up like a mountain. I wanted to make the water look like a river with the different textures of colors,” he said of his ceramic Untitled.

“When I created the sculpture I was thinking about a family in the Bahamas having a great time on the water fall,” Thaxton said.

Its partnership with community centers and schools includes the Martin Luther King Multi Purpose Center (grades 1 to 8), the Excellence in Education & Living Environments for Families (EELEF) program at Spring Valley Commons (grades 1 to 12), Summit Park Elementary School, Rockland After School Program 2015 (RASP) and Spring Valley High School (grades 9 to 12).

Blue in the center of Solomon Guy’s art represents a river, the left side represents mountains, and the right is construction, Pinel explained, and lines on top represent the wind. Using different textures of paper, Guy created as he went along without initially sketching it.

Dwellings: An installation by artists in the Creative Clay class with art teacher and ceramist Pamela Wood that “challenged students to interpret ‘dwellings’ in their own way,” Wood said. Each student chose the dwelling, and “we discussed shapes, colors, size and styles as the project evolved, and students retained the freedom to develop their own work.”

Visual and performing arts programs plus swimming (instruction and free swim) await campers at RoCA’s summer season, which runs from June 30 to August 21. Campers ages 5 (entering kindergarten) to 12 can choose four, six or eight-week sessions of three or four days (from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.) weekly.

“We’re halfway full for the first four-week session, which tends to fill up quickly,” Alinkofsky said. RoCA began offering the six-week option a few years ago with 400 children attending annually.

Musical review rehearsals each Friday prepare campers for an end-of-session show.

“Each week they work on their costumes and learn their lines and work on the sets,” she said. Last summer campers performed “Aladdin” and a “Show-Stoppers Review.” What began in 2009 as an addition to the camp week with 40 campers expanded into an anticipated musical event with 105 campers last summer.

For information call 845-358-0877, ext. 18, or email amyrca@aol.com.