Celebrating the Students

In 1961, the Art & Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) created Children’s Art Month to emphasize the value of student’s visual arts education. Although Children’s Art Month originally focused on elementary age students, in 1969 it expanded to include secondary level art students—officially becoming known as Youth Art Month. Each March, the Museum focuses on the importance and impact of student art by highlighting it in a variety of ways, including our 48th Annual Student Art Exhibition, which opens this Saturday, March 15 and feature artwork from grades five through eight. 

Throughout the years, students of all ages have had an opportunity to show their work in a variety of spaces, whether that be in the lower-level hallway, Art Park, the lower-level classrooms, or even in formal galleries like the first two small galleries in the North Gallery or South Gallery. While Youth Art Month focuses on the arts influence in developing a better quality of life, expanding art programs in schools, and increasing community, business, and governmental support for art education. The impact is felt generations down the line as adults remember once, perhaps many moons ago, when their work graced the walls of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. It’s a source of pride for students, both current and former, to know that their work is worthy of a museum’s walls. 

This year, we are once again experimenting with the placement of Student Art, while also encouraging the connection between this exhibition and Portfolios: Advanced Art from Wausau East and West, which features work from Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) art students from Wausau West and East High Schools. The work from 112 fifth through eighth grade students will mingle with the work of ten high school seniors to create a symphony of student artwork, featured prominently in the Museum’s West Gallery. While any space is one of honor, it feels extremely special this year to know that such a beautiful gallery is overflowing with work of aspiring artists and community members.  

I hope that you will be part of the magic that is created and join us on Saturday, March 29 from 1 — 3pm at an Emerging Artists Reception to celebrate the accomplishments of these individuals and encourage their artistic pursuits for many years to come. We look forward to when they are a little bit older and remember the day that their work was displayed here, at the Woodson Art Museum.