The objective of the AEL Student Grant initiative is to provide students with an opportunity to develop and implement arts projects beyond the scope of the IAA curriculum. AEL also provides grant money for the development of directed master classes designed to facilitate mentorships with master teachers.
Student Grants for Emerging Young Artists
Students will be given a chance to apply for and receive small grants to create new works. These grant proposals will be open to the junior and senior classes because of the maturity required to shepherd an artistic project from concept through completion. The projects will be overseen and the students will be coached by the appropriate arts faculty, the AEL director, and the AEL intern. The application process we have put in place will give the students valuable experience in applying for grants as they move on through the rest of their education and on to their chosen careers. By making them consider all aspects of a proposal—idea, design, implementation, detailed budgeting, etc.—we will equip them with the knowledge they will need to pursue grants on their own, while providing them with the necessary skills and resources to navigate the process.
Master Classes
These master classes are designed to give our students direct interaction with professional artists working in the students’ chosen field of artistic expression. Since these classes will be more focused in scope and participation than a traditional master class, we hope to set up mentoring relationships that live beyond a student’s experience at Idyllwild Arts Academy and perhaps one that lives past a student’s college/art school/conservatory experience. These master classes will be for those students who are ready, both artistically and personally, for a more engaged and interactive mentoring relationship.
Career Education
The education component of the AEL has three basic areas:
- Introduce young artists to the myriad of jobs that are available in the art world and help them determine which would be best suited to their unique skills.
- Assist them in mapping out the best way to achieve their individual professional career goals, whether they are college, university, or conservatory bound.
- Introduce and perhaps set up summer internships and work experience opportunities for our students to take part in during their vacations.
We are currently working to finalize our plans for a “career” curriculum that works within the existing class scheduling. Since time is a precious commodity in our students’ lives, we will integrate this new material into our Life Skills class curriculum, senior seminar classes (in a general group and in each department’s senior seminar classes) and one-on-one conversations during the established college counseling process.
Arts Education Internships
The focus of this AEL area will be to employ young artists just out of college to serve as interns in our seven arts departments. Our present goal with this program is twofold:
- Give young artists a chance to create new work in a supportive and nurturing environment; and
- Support them as they explore teaching art in a classroom setting (which might just uncover a passion they might not have been aware of before). While our primary focus will be to offer these positions to IAA alumni, we will also look for suitable candidates from other schools.