By Sarah Cook

The Selma Times-Journal

 

On a hot summer day, 20 young Selma athletes gathered together at the PAL Center Gymnasium to display their best artwork in conjunction with the PAL Summer Art Camp, a program sponsored by the Selma Art Guild.

The program, made possible by a grant from the Black Belt Community Foundation, was a vision that came from the Selma Police Athletic League, Art Guild president Sally Jordan and Karen Weir, an architectural designer who volunteered to teach the camp.

“She just has worlds of talent and originality,” Jordan said of Weir. “We’re very lucky that she’s here.”

Through Weir’s teachings, children demonstrated their knowledge of form, line and shape using 2D and 3D mediums.

Weir said her goal in teaching this class was to expose children, ages 10 to 15, to “real materials, not children stuff.”

“My hope was to show them how to use the (art) tools and then let them do it,” Weir said.

Each child was given their own art tool kit during the two-week program, which included colored pencils, pastels, watercolors and markers.

Weir said she also wanted the children to learn how to use recycled materials in making their artwork. One of the main art displays included totem poles made out of used cardboard roles.

“You can make art out of anything,” Weir said. “I didn’t want them to be limited.”

Ashunte Pettus, an upcoming seventh grader at Tipton Middle School, said she’s greatly enjoyed participating in the program.

“I’ve had a lot of fun,” Tipton said, who proudly displayed several of her artworks in the show.

Weir said she was very happy with the outcome of the program, and she feels that the children benefitted greatly from it.

“We had a lot of good students,” she said. “They all did fabulous.”