“Sharon is a wonderfully kind and creative artist who works so nicely with young people.
If your child has any interest in art, Sharon offers a great after school program.”
Mark Fraire, Wisconsin Arts Board
(Classes at the Williamson Street Art Center are temporarily
suspended for remodeling. Watch for our GRAND
REOPENING SPRING 2012!)
The Williamson Street Art Center has designed an approach to teaching art that is well thought out
and tested.
Classes are conducted in a warm non-judgmental manner that will allow you to learn at your own rate.
Making art this way will help build your confidence because the need to worry about “rightness” or
“wrongness” is eliminated. You will solve esthetic and structural problems with your own hands,
through your own creativity. The solution lies within you and will be true.
By making art, you rely upon your own instincts.
Researchers recognize the positive effect that making art has upon the brain – whether it is a young
brain that is developing, or an older brain that is trying to stave off stagnation.
By making art, you express yourself.
You can use art to comment upon the world and your place in it. Art provides you with a language that
you can use as a poetic lens for viewing everyday reality and then expressing what you see.
By making art, you commune with artists throughout the ages.
Your own developing creativity will give you insight into the inner workings of the world’s great
painters, poets, architects, and composers.
By making art, you experience the power of transformation.
Art can effect changes in your life that can be lasting. Because art is one of the primary sources of
inquiry and inspiration, it can offer you rich stimulation, meaning, and hopefully, some fun!
The use of “mixed media” and “found art” are central to the Williamson Street Art Center’s
basic curriculum.
“Mixed media” is used to build a design vocabulary.
You will be encouraged to try your hand with a variety of media or materials, both two dimensional
and three dimensional, including drawing, painting, collage, assemblage, clay, mosaic, textiles and metals.
You will be able to use these materials separately and also in combination.
You will gain confidence in combining materials.
Although mixed media is seen as a somewhat sophisticated genre by the “art world,” the Williamson
Street Art Center’s unique use of mixed media in the curriculum has proven to be highly successful,
even with children. You will find that your own sense of design emerges in whatever medium you use and
becomes stronger as it develops across media.
“Found art” is used to increase freedom and imagination.
You will be encouraged to use anything in your environment to make art. By tapping into your inherent
sense of freedom, you will never look at everyday objects in the same way again. When you use anything
to make art, you begin to search for the art in everything.
Classes at the Williamson Street Art Center:
Mural camp is a week long day camp, held once or twice each summer. During mural camp, participants
develop design skills and painting skills by planning and painting a mural. Participants work with others
to create a large-scale long-lasting work of art. Most participants are middle school or high school aged,
but have ranged from 7 to 60 years old.
Summer ‘07
Summer ‘06
Summer ‘05
“Thank you for inviting my Art Seminar class to visit your home and studio.
The students felt honored by your willingness to take so much time with them, and by your openness
as you shared your story of your own development as a socially engaged, community-based artist
whose life is so deeply infused with art making.”
Melanie Herzog, Edgewood College Professor of Art History
During this week-long summer workshop sponsored by the UW Educational Outreach - Technology and Arts
program, middle school students painted a mural at Center for Families in
Madison, WI.
During the week-long Technology and Arts program and 2 sessions of College for
Kids, middle school students painted murals with summer camp and day care
children at the Atwood Youth Center in Madison, WI
Click here for information on UW College for Kids and UW Technology and Arts programs.
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