PTA Helps Infuse Arts With ‘Local Color’ : At El Morro School in Laguna Beach, extracurricular expressions of art, music and literature are rewarded in a two-day exhibition.

Katie Massey, 7, picked up her paintbrush and stood back to admire the bold strokes of color on canvas. “I tried to just do scribbling,” she says, eyeing her work critically. “But it turned out to look really nice. I think it will turn out like a masterpiece.”

The painting, an abstract creation of pupils at El Morro School in Laguna Beach, may not be a Picasso, but for kids like Katie that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the schoolyard workshop that produced this painting has motivated 500 children to create their own works of art.

The results will be on display during a two-day show May 12 and 13 at the school. The PTA-sponsored program is designed to inspire El Morro pupils to express their own talents, according to Susan Gilomen and Kirsten Whalen, the PTA parents in charge of the non-juried show called “Local Color.”

The exhibit is not limited to visual arts, but also will include stories, poems and musical compositions by pupils. The project, Gilomen says, “started as a seed and grew into a giant tree.”

The school held its first arts festival last year and had about 250 entries. “But this year we’ve had constant awareness,” she says, “and we hope all 500 will participate.”

Participation in the show is voluntary, and workshops and other programs leading up to the exhibit are held outside of school hours, either during assemblies or during lunch breaks.

Children work on their entries at home, and to keep kids motivated Gilomen and Whalen sought help from the many art professionals in Laguna Beach. Since March, volunteer artists, writers and musicians have visited the school to conduct workshops such as the recent one in which Katie Massey learned to paint her masterpiece.

“The whole idea is to inspire kids to create something of their own,” Gilomen says. “And this is all done on a volunteer basis. No money is involved. All artists have brought their own supplies.”

Painter Chris Gwaltney, whose daughter Dylan, 6, attends El Morro, showed up for the final workshop with a giant yellow canvas and a selection of brushes and oils.

As children arrived, he let them paint colorful fish onto the canvas.

“I am always stunned by the natural color sense of kids,” says Gwaltney, who teaches art at Cal State Fullerton. “They are fearless around color. They are willing to put down a strong spectrum color, whereas adults are not.”

On the patio nearby, artist Michael Jacques instructed his young pupils to draw a self-portrait or portraits of their families. And in another corner, Mark Heussenstamm was teaching printmaking to dozens of eager youngsters.

Kirsten Whalen, whose children, Elliot, 6, Andy, 7, and Erika, 10, attend El Morro School, says the schoolyard workshops give artists in the community a chance to share their many talents with children. “The artists have been very enthusiastic,” she says.

Guidelines for the exhibit define three categories of participation: literature, music and visual arts.

“By far the majority will do a visual arts project,” Whalen says.

“Visual arts are very tangible. It is fun to do after school, but not everyone writes except under duress. Somewhere in our adulthood we lose sight of the fact that writing poetry is fun. Our goal is to encourage the creative side of kids, to show that literature can be art, too, and to provide a forum for them to display their work. My hope is we catch them before they say, ‘I can’t do that.’ ”

Regardless of category, entries must be original. Artwork can include drawings, paintings, collage, photography, printmaking, ceramics and sculpture. Musical entries must be written out and mounted on construction paper.

If they want, pupils can also perform their original compositions before a video camera operated by PTA volunteers. Tapes of performances will be run continuously during the exhibit.

Literature can be handwritten or typed, and younger children may have their work transcribed for them as long as no one alters grammar or speech. Children who want to read or perform their works before a camera may do so.

Organizing such a sophisticated show for 500 elementary school kids takes time and involves dozens of volunteers, according to Gilomen, who describes herself as a “full-time mom.”

Gilomen moved to Laguna Beach about two years ago from Pasadena, where her son Ryan, 10, attended a prestigious private school that included arts in the curriculum. But at El Morro, as in many other public schools, Gilomen discovered that there were no full-time art or music teachers.

“This is a way to teach and show these children things they may not normally see,” she says.

Both Gilomen and Whalen view their involvement in the project as time well-spent. Whalen, who used to work full time, says she now devotes as much time as possible to “making the school as good as it can be” by working on programs such as the Local Color exhibition.

Last year’s show was a hit with the community, and the women are hoping for a good turnout this year. The exhibition will run from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. May 12 and during school hours May 13 in the school cafeteria.

Whalen says all the children’s work will be displayed as long as it meets the simple entry rules.

“No teacher is going to grade them,” Whalen says.

Gilomen nods her agreement. “Everyone is a winner.”