Bella

Bella

Learning for Life (LfL) BELLA is a four day art workshop for secondary school students participating in The Smith Family’s Learning for Life suite of programs.

Since its inception in October 2002, The Smith Family has offered two LfL BELLA workshops a year, in April and October. Attendees are selected from LfL scholarship students in Years 10 and 11, who are studying art, intend to continue studying art and are interested in ultimately working in an art related field. The workshops are generally comprised of twelve participants.

Initially students were drawn from the Sydney Metropolitan region, but since October 2005, the opportunity has been offered to students from regional and rural NSW.

The workshop is conducted at the Museum of Contemporary Art and includes an additional half-day visit to Sydney University College of the Arts (SCA). In 2008 this visit included a workshop with visiting artist Julian Dashper.

The Smith Family supplements the MCA planned artistic experience with an after hours program of activities designed to broaden the experience of young people visiting the city for the first time

The opportunity to interact with students from different backgrounds and experience, to build social relations and learn something of working together as a team adds significantly to the artistic challenge.

During the day, students work on their art, guided by an artist and two purpose-trained art educators. By the conclusion of the workshop, each student will have had the chance to experiment with different art forms, techniques and media, be guided in their choice of an art style for their Major Art work for the Higher School Certificate and to create an art portfolio. The week culminates with an exhibition of students’ work to which parents, teachers and the funding bodies are invited.

The LfL BELLA workshop involves TSF in three separate partnerships with:

• MCA (program design and specialist artistic input)
• Mallesons Stephens Jacques (funders)
• Sydney University College of the Arts (SCA) – (both funders and art experience).

To date, a total of 94 students have attended LfL BELLA workshops. A solid 43% have chosen to attend a second time. Student responses to the program are almost invariably positive and often include comments that they wish the program ran for longer – it’s the best thing they have ever done! Parents also respond favourably about the program – they describe it as an ’enormously valuable experience’ in which ‘everything is thought of’.