C.L.U.E. is an after-school arts partnership between several area organizations.
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – It’s 4 p.m. on a Tuesday.

If Olivia Griffin was at home, the 12-year-old guesses she would be watching television, taking a nap or maybe doing homework.

Same goes for 12-year-old Courteny Orcutt.

Instead, the two Mount Blue Middle School seventh-graders, both from Farmington, are prancing around the room, handmade oversized tan masks propped atop their heads as they practice a creative movement piece they wrote with the help of actor/dancer/teacher Louis Gervais.

The bell rang more than a hour ago yet the two girls, and 20 other students, are still at school. Voluntarily.

That’s the point, said Anne Geller, director of the Foothills Art Center and arts director of the Creative Learning: Unlimited Excellence program.

The program keeps Griffin, Orcutt and other middle school students artistically engaged after school for two days a week.

C.L.U.E. is a partnership between Foothills Art Center, the University of Maine at Farmington and SAD 9. It is funded under a three-year grant of $150,000 annually from a 21st Century Community Learning Grant, part of the No Child Left Behind initiative.

For the next three years, there will be four sessions each academic year. Word is getting out on the middle school gab network and the program is catching on.

The last session was theater-improv and songwriting; 12 students participated. This time around, the focus is on creative movement and mask-making. Twenty-two kids signed on.

Geller said one of the two main ideas behind the program is to help kids associate school with a place where they really want to be and to make kids realize art should be a staple in their lives by giving them experience.

“So much time is spent passively,” Geller explained. “This way, students are entertaining themselves and finding their own ways to have fun.”

‘It’s cool’

The program gives them a chance to act in ways that would normally be frowned upon in school, the girls said. They can be loud, or be messy or be silly, as long as it’s productive.

“I think it’s really cool,” Orcutt said, her speech growing quick as her bright blues widen. “It’s really fun exaggerating and being dramatic. I like acting. I’ve gotten so good at it. Like when I am fake crying, I actually begin to cry.”

Alan McGillivray, an artist who recently moved to Farmington from New Orleans where he worked to build giant sculptures for the Mardi Gras celebration, said time is the program’s only boundary. He teaches mask-making.

“A lot of them are getting very complex about their creations and I have to pull them back sometimes because we only have so much time,” he said.

“They’re expressing themselves in a way that’s very interesting. It’s a healthy escape, and anything that can make a person feel better about themselves, especially at this age, is a good thing,” he said.

Organizers hope the pride the students get from their art will help make life a little easier.

“For many, C.L.U.E. provides a healthy outlet and a form of expression for kids who are searching for their voice and identity” explained Wendy Oakley, program director. “For a self-conscious middle-school-aged student, C.L.U.E. provides the chance to ‘lose oneself’ in a creative effort and thus find the satisfaction of immersion in art.”

For more information, or to sign up for the next session, which runs from Jan. 27 through March 4, contact Oakley at 778-7197. The after-school program is free, and snacks and transportation are provided.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link