By Jenny Hoang
On
the grey Pacific Northwest Saturday, October 20, 2012, screaming children chase
each other around in colorful costumes and painted hands in an old gas station
on the outskirts of the Columbia Neighborhood. Gabriel Miles is hosting a Halloween party of arts and
crafts for the youth of Bellingham at her recently opened art school, Gabriels
Art Kids, at the Dupont Street intersection.
“There
aren’t many places nearby for after-school activities. Zoe gets out of preschool at 1 p.m. so
[the studio] is perfect,” said Columbia Neighborhood resident Meredith Jarvis. She is optimistic about the new studio
for her 3-year-old daughter, Zoe.
Since
the grand opening on Sept. 17, the studio offers a preschool program and an
after-school program dedicated to creative learning for toddlers and children
in all forms of art: visual, music, dance, and theatre. Seven children, from age 18-months-old
to 5-years-old, are currently enrolled in the daytime preschool program and a
combination of 17 preschool and elementary-age students are currently attending
the after-school program. For
toddlers, cost varies from $199 to $535 per month depending on age, amount of
days, and length of days. For the
after-school program, cost varies from $120 to $300 depending on number of days
of enrollment per week. For
specialized art classes, Miles charges $55 per month for four classes or $15 per
class.
Columbia
resident Marie Ann Cooper says the after-school program at Gabriels Art Kids
provides an affordable place for her children to go after school.
“After-school
programs at [Columbia] are limited.
An example is that martial arts are only offered once a week. A lot of programs are either before
class or only an hour after class and that doesn’t cover the time my husband
and I are working,” Cooper says.
As a potter, she occasionally teaches pottery and clay making at the
studio.
For
Cooper, the art studio’s “walking bus” program, where Ashley Buerger, Mile’s
colleague, picks up the children from Columbia Elementary and walks them six
blocks to the school, provides an affordable place for her children to grow and
learn through creativity.
After
graduating from the School of Visual Arts, New York City, Miles travelled
around New York inner-city schools for two years as an admissions counselor for
the university in 1998.
“Here
we were in the art Mecca of the world and they were cutting all of the art
funding,” Miles says. She
remembers meeting talented youths with no means to a creative outlet.
While
studying in Syracuse University for her masters in art education, she
frequently visited an art barn in the small town of Deposit, New York. She was inspired to convert it into a
retreat for inner-city kids.
“Since
then it has been burning a hole in my mind,” said Miles. The plan fell through due to lack of
finances.
With
a master’s degree in art education, Miles and her husband moved to the West
Coast where Bellingham became their destination small town. Since moving to Bellingham in 2003, she
has been collaborating with Allied Arts of Whatcom County, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to enriching the community through the arts, to teach
classes at local schools.
“Once
I had [my daughter], I realized there was nothing art-related for toddlers in
this town,” Miles says. She tested
the waters with toddler art classes at the Food Co-Op downtown. People came from every part of
town. That’s when she knew there
was a need.
“Just
like art in school, recess and physical education are being cut so there is a
need for it [here],” said Buerger.
She is a recent graduate at Western Washington University with a
bachelor’s degree in recreational therapy. She connected with Miles through the Viking Village Forum,
the university’s online public forum, and worked as her nanny. When Miles bought the building, Buerger
became her main associate.
Since
the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of the Bush Administration in
2001, funding in public schools has been allocated to focus more on the core
subjects, according to an Ohio case study done by Cydney Spohn in 2008.
The
availability of art programs offered in public elementary has declined an
average of 12 percent from 1999 to 2010, according to a study by the National
Center for Educational Statistics.
While the availability of music education remains the same, visual arts,
dance, and theatre take drastic cuts.
“There
have been $10.5 billion in state spending reductions since 2009,” said Dr. Greg
Baker, Bellingham Public Schools Superintendent, in a budget update
presentation April 13, 2012 to the Parents Advisory Council.
State-funded
art-related programs are feeling the brunt of these budget cuts. With adjustments to inflation, the
Washington State Arts Commission, which assists in developing art curriculums,
has seen a decrease of 38 percent in funding since 2000 according to the
Washington State Fiscal Information
The
most commonly cited barriers to teaching the arts were testing-related mandates
that require more focus on literacy and math, insufficient class time based on
requirements of other core subjects, and lack of sustained school funding for
arts education, according to an arts education research initiative done by
Washington State Arts Commission.
“It
is about teaching real-life skills.
We will create this whole person rather than just one part of study,”
Miles says. She believes art
education is a tool to teach constructive criticism.
Miles
hopes to one day open an alternative art school for children of all ages. Finance has always been a hurdle. For now, she is just taking baby steps
by hosting one community event at a time.