The center creates a COMMUNITY SPACE for art programs for kids and adults alike
By Kastle Waserman
Photography Courtesy of The Curtis Center for the Arts
As public-school budget cuts squeeze out arts programs, The Curtis Center for the Arts, hosted in a one-hundred-year-old Greenwood Village schoolhouse, continues educating children and adults in various art mediums. “I’ve been here for sixteen years and have watched it grow from only twenty-five students to where we are now with about two thousand students a year,” says assistant cultural arts coordinator Lauren Brant.
The Curtis Center for the Arts was formerly known as the Curtis Center and has a long history in the area. Originally a clapboard, one-room schoolhouse erected in 1901 on land donated for education by a local resident, it was later replaced by a brick structure in 1914, and various add-ons took place. In 1985, it was purchased by the Baptist Church and moved to the southeast corner of Curtis Park, where it stands today.
The Center offers classes for children from ages three to 16. Then, they move on to adult classes. “Our goal is to keep them going,” Brant says. “I have kids that started with us, and now they’re in college, but they’ve continued taking the adult classes, so we see the whole progression.” Youth art classes include drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics and mixed media.
On any given day, kids are bustling inside the Center, exploring different mediums to find what they like and improve their artistic skills. There are also two youth summer art camps with weekly afternoon art classes.
In the mornings, the Curtis Center for the Arts attracts students in the later stages of life, such as retirees who come to find a peaceful, like-minded social gathering and to learn something new or pick up an old hobby. Adult classes are often held in the morning and include drawing, ceramics, printmaking, painting and encaustics (hot wax painting).
“We have classes going from nine a.m. until nine p.m. and on the weekends,” Brant says, who added that there more than 20 teachers involved, often former students of the center who come back to share what they know.
The Center also serves as an exhibit space for artists, consisting of many who have taken classes there. “The ‘All Colorado Art Show’ is going into our 41st year,” Brant says. “That is our most popular show since we exhibit original works of art from Colorado artists who have to apply to get in.”
Other events include lectures based on the exhibits, which Brant says is usually done by the juror of that exhibit, who explains why they selected the works and the winners.
A recent study released by The Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization showed that active and receptive participation in the arts can play an important role in promoting good health and health equity, preventing illness and treating acute and chronic conditions across the lifespan.
For Brant, she feels the Center is an important part of the community to keep art and access to art classes available to everyone. Its aim is to fill the void left in schools.
“It’s a way of being creative,” she says, “being free to think and to work with your hands.”
The Curtis Center for the Arts
2349 East Orchard Rd., Greenwood Village
303.797.177
