Viewing art is enriching; creating art is challenging and fulfilling. A dozen teenage students from The Children’s Sangha got the chance to do both recently at the Gold Coast Arts Center’s current exhibit, Chinese Artists in America.
The Children’s Sangha, based in Bellmore, provides workshops, field trips and volunteer placements for young adults, with a focus on those youths whose abilities are often not being cultivated and their needs may not be fully met. Sangha is a term derived from ancient South Asian languages that denotes a nurturing community.
“One of the Gold Coast Arts Center’s aims is to promote active, and engaging participation in the arts,” says Jude Amsel, the Gold Coast Arts Center’s gallery director. “Engagement comes from exposure as well as hands-on activities, and the program we had with the students from The Children’s Sangha enabled both.”
The Children’s Sangha mission is “to plant the seeds of stewardship in children and young adults by deepening their understanding of themselves, others and nature, as well as fostering in adults the spirit of education and joys of the growing mind that they may cultivate it in our youth.” Amsel notes that the Gold Coast Arts Center wholly supports that mission.
Chinese Artists in America, which features eight contemporary Chinese-American artists, runs until March 30. The exhibition reflects the creative vitality of Chinese-American cultural growth through the arts and its historical and aesthetic linkage to other communities.
For more information, call 515-829-2570 or visit www.goldcoastarts.org/chinese-artists-in-america/.
