DAVID HARDEN/Arizona Daily Wildcat

A high school student works on a drawing at the ArtWORKS Academy. The school, situated inside the El Con Mall on East Broadway Boulevard, gives young artists a chance to boost their portfolios for college admission.

Monday October 22, 2001

Many high school students interested in art may perform better in a non-traditional high school than in a regular classroom setting. Locally, an alternative arts-based high school, ArtWORKS Academy, located in El Con Mall, makes such an opportunity possible for Tucson's young artists.

"We realize that there is a greater number of students who have a greater affinity for the arts but do not do well in school. They are the ones who sit in the back of the room and draw - they usually drop out," said Robert Mackay, director of the Tucson Unified School District's alternative education program. "The idea was to create a school that would motivate and interest them. Also, it will involve them with the community."

El Con Mall, in addition to other local organizations, partnered with the academy. The mall houses the classrooms and studios.

"We had been looking at creating a partnership with the mall, so this is a great opportunity," Mackay said. "It is one of the few times you see such a partnership - people from the El Con Mall supported it and the mayor (Bob Walkup) and council. There was a grant from Home Depot, but the biggest supporter was the TUSD school board."

ArtWORKS Academy provides students with the opportunity to create portfolios of their work, which would potentially prepare them for applying to art school.

"Our goal is to get students through academia, get a diploma, and create art - in addition to offering them the opportunity to build portfolios to go to art schools," said Lorraine Hernandez, Art Works Program Director at Tucson-Pima Arts Council.

Students at the academy divide their time between art classes and academics.

"It's fun - we get to learn a lot of art stuff and if we decide to go on to (an) art college we will have a good foundation in art and a good portfolio," said ArtWORKS Academy 10th grader Margaret Dery-Chaffin.

Students at ArtWORKS learn "real world" skills from their professional artist instructors.

"From the start, that was a really rewarding experience for me coming from graduate school - to give students something that was a learning experience as well as a real world experience," said Geoff DeMark, artist/instructor at ArtWORKS Academy.

DeMark's wife, University of Arizona art history professor Lori Schramel-Demark, sees ArtWORKS as a viable interest for future art teachers.

"Most schools seem to be lacking in the funding department, which is very discouraging," she stated in an e-mail interview. "I see trends focusing on community arts."

Students created decorative ceramic tiles for the Posadas Sentinel housing development on the south side of Tucson, and will be involved in other commissions throughout the city.

"(The city is) doing some improvements down by the Hotel Congress and are creating a large ramada, and they wanted us to make the donor tiles that will be inset in the bench seats," DeMark said.

Students will be able to view many of their commissioned ceramic pieces around Tucson for years to come.

Students at ArtWORKS produce clay tiles for sale in their gallery at the mall and then receive half of the profits from the sales.

"What we are trying to develop is basic skills to make (art) work to have in our gallery so a nice variety of people can come in and have a choice. People can buy pre-existing ceramic work or commission things from scratch," DeMark said.

Students said they enjoy the excitement of competing for each commission and the satisfaction of getting paid.

"We get lots of commissions, and it's exciting trying to get the commissions because there are other people competing from the school and you get paid," Dery-Chaffin said.