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Local teens partner with national artists

Whitney Taylor, 18, of Centerville cuts a linoleum block for printmaking on Monday, June 29. The two young Dayton artists are among the more than 30 working alongside professional artists to create contemporary works of art as part of the Blue Sky Project. The University of Dayton is now the permanent home of the summer arts program which began outside Chicago in 2004.

Chris Stewart/Staff photo Whitney Taylor, 18, of Centerville cuts a linoleum block for printmaking on Monday, June 29. The two young Dayton artists are among the more than 30 working alongside professional artists to create contemporary works of art as part of the Blue Sky Project. The University of Dayton is now the permanent home of the summer arts program which began outside Chicago in 2004.

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By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer Updated 12:59 AM Thursday, July 9, 2009

DAYTON — Katherine Mann is creating a wall-sized “abstract landscape” painting in collaboration with seven students from Dayton-area high schools.

“I never would have been able to create something like what’s up there right now from my own head,” said Mann, a painter from Baltimore. “It had to come from all these other different voices having an equal partnership in creating this thing.”

Mann is producing the latest piece in her “Byzantine” series as part of the Blue Sky Project, an eight-week program that pairs five artists from across the U.S. with a total of 33 Dayton-area youth participants.

“The youth are really actively engaged, conceptually and creatively, in the art-making process,” said Blue Sky Project founder Peter Benkendorf.

Founded in 2004 in a Chicago suburb, the summer artist-in-residence program moved to Dayton this year through a new partnership with the University of Dayton.

“Blue Sky provides really powerful connections between our campus art-making programs and teenage youth who are interested in developing their creative abilities,” said Paul Benson, dean of UD’s College or Arts and Sciences.

Each resident artist is working with a group of six to seven youth participants from the Dayton Early College Academy, Stivers High School for Arts and Kettering Fairmont High School, among other schools.

The groups each bring a project from conception to completion in eight weeks. The works will be exhibited Aug. 7-8 at the Excelsior Building in the Oregon Arts District.

The Dayton community always has prided itself on its participation in the arts, said Rodney Veal, a local choreographer who is one of the five artists for 2009.

“Now it’s an opportunity to expand on it,” Veal said. “Bring in new voices, fresh faces from the outside.”

The artists also include Malic Amalya, a filmmaker from Seattle; Lisa Nonken, a sculptor from Chicago; and Alan Strathmann, a sculptor and video installation artist from Chicago.

UD is providing housing and studio facilities for the artists. UD also helped to pay for the program’s relocation to Dayton. Benson declined to give a dollar figure for university support.

“We’re able to provide the program to youth participants at no cost other than the daily lunch they have to cover and transportation to campus,” he said.

Blue Sky is committed to producing significant works of contemporary art, Benkendorf said. Past final projects have been exhibited and sold in New York City and Chicago, and featured in the New York Times, and The New Yorker and Art in America magazines.

“Already I think we see some indication that this could be a great way for Dayton’s interest in the arts to become more widely publicized around the country,” Benson said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2419 or dlarsen@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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