Parent Group Launches Bid to Restore Art Program

Reseda cartoonist Spike Dolomite Ward was “totally, totally, totally freaked out” a year ago when she learned her son’s kindergarten class, like most San Fernando Valley elementary schools, had no art supplies and no art instruction.

From Ward’s disgust with the school’s shortcoming grew the Arts in Education Aid Council, a nonprofit group of artists whose long-term goal is to restore a district-funded art program to Valley schools. The group met Monday night for the first time.

The campaign started when Ward complained to her husband and father-in-law that Vanalden Avenue Elementary couldn’t afford to pay the $250 for a school bus to take students to a museum. The three decided they each would donate enough money for one class’ bus ride, and said they would ask others to do so too.

Ward, who founded the group with two local playwrights, said the organization has already begun raising money for all the Vanalden teachers who submitted a wish list to the council. The council hopes to raise $15,000 this school year to buy more art supplies and pay artists to teach clinics at the school.

As more money and artists come in, she said, the council will spread its work to other Valley schools.

“We established ourselves as a nonprofit organization, so we would not have to deal with” school district politics, said Ward, the council’s founder and president. “We have a lot more freedom in getting art in schools right away and getting local talent to do it.”

Ward related to the group her experience of going into Vanalden to teach an art class to students without art supplies.

“Of the 200 schools in the San Fernando Valley, a majority don’t have active [Parent Teacher Assns.],” Ward said. “That means no booster club to raise money for supplies, so the kids are out of luck.

“I want to be able to say, ‘Here you go, kids. These are acrylics, and these are watercolors. Let’s go for it,’ instead of saying, ‘Let’s make pretend you’ve got brushes. And, oh, here’s a black-and-white picture of what a Van Gogh looks like.’ ”

Other artists at the meeting Monday echoed Ward’s sentiment on the importance of a school arts program.

“As a practical matter, this is Los Angeles, the entertainment capital,” weaver and fiber artist Julie Kornblum said. “Not only is it the entertainment capital, but Los Angeles is on the cutting edge of architecture and design. But our schools don’t even teach basic art.

“There are 365 fields under the category of art that employ people,” Kornblum said. “Besides that, art is what makes us human, not speech or warfare.”

For the arts-in-school venture, the council has paired itself with the San Fernando Valley Arts Council, an organization that has been involved in youth arts through the Media and Animation Center in Encino, and was instrumental in establishing the orchestra program at Canoga Park High School.