Catalyst Grant Final Report
“Teen Art Exploration”
Please provide a brief narrative explaining your project and its outcomes.
The Frankfort Library was able to offer four art workshops for teens. The first two workshops were held in October with local artist Becca Harris. They were Succulents & Smoothies and Cartooning & Coffee. In November the workshops included Art of Glass Fusion with Frankfort-Schuyler art teacher Cynthia Brownell and building a Keepsake Box with local small business owner Cindy Young. A fifth session was scheduled for jewelry making in December but ended being postponed until 2025 due to conflicting schedules before the holidays.
The largest obstacle was finding the artists to lead the workshops as there isn’t an easily searchable database for this. I spent several months trying to network different avenues and found that even when an artist was interested it was difficult to coordinate their availability around the teens’ school, work, sports and other commitments. We did offer at least one of the workshops outside of normal library hours to accommodate this.
What is the most remarkable accomplishment or finding of your project?
While the majority of the participants were high school females, we actually had a couple of middle school boys attend and participate in a couple of the projects. Since they were actually interested in the projects, they listened to instructions and put effort into their creations.How did your project differ from what you originally proposed?
With the difficulty of finding presenters, the workshops were offered later in the year than originally planned.
Formal evaluations were not done, but we had several participants asking for information about the next round of workshops during each session. With the display of interest, we are currently planning to offer several of these type of workshops again next year, along with other smaller scale crafts for teens.
Anything else you’d like us to know?
We are discussing setting up a shareable spreadsheet of contact information for artists that might be interested in offering classes or workshops to local libraries.
Melissa Wohler
Library Manager, Frankfort Free Library
Are you interested in applying for a Catalyst Grant? Check out the grant page for the rules & requirements!
