Amarillo College (AC), in collaboration with the Texas Panhandle Art Education Association (TPAEA), presents their IGNITE Creative Arts High School Conference on Friday, April 19th from 8am to 2:30pm at the AC Washington Street Campus.
Featuring 400 high school students from the Texas Panhandle, the event aims to inspire young artists as they prepare to enter college and the workforce. During the conference, students will participate in workshops led by faculty and artisans, divided into morning and afternoon sessions, with plenty of hands-on opportunities. Some of the sessions will include topics and mediums such as green screen, action drawings, clay animals, stencils for simple people, henna body art and many more.
Around noon, keynote speaker contemporary artist and filmmaker Caledonia Curry, aka Swoon, will share her artistic journey from entering the art world as a street artist and gaining international recognition in a male-dominated field to her many solo and group exhibitions . in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, New York; The Brooklyn Museum; The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and more. The artist’s work can be seen year-round in public and private collections at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.
In addition to paving the way for women and young artists, Swoon also took this initiative a step further by establishing the Heliotrope Foundation in 2015 to support collaborative projects that use art to respond to crisis.
“Having Swoon as our keynote speaker this year is remarkable. To bring in an artist of this caliber, who has had such an impact on the art world internationally, who started out as one of the first female street artists in a predominantly male field, is life changing. Our kids have access to speak and learn from this caliber of artist, we couldn’t be more excited to connect with these students,” said TPAEA President Sean Kennedy.
As stated in an AC news release, this event will be Ignite’s fourth conference since its inception in 2019, following a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To kick off the event, Brick & Elm Magazine’s Jason Boyett will moderate a panel with local artists discussing this year’s theme of creative careers.
Some of the high schools in the area that can attend IGNITE include Amarillo, Boys Ranch, Bushland, Canyon, Plainview, River Road, Sanford-Fritch, Spearman and Texline schools. The conference will be held across the college campus, including sessions held in the AC College Union Building Byrd, Parcells, and Ordway rooms.
AC art instructor and conference organizer Stephanie Jung said in a news release, “We are excited to welcome these students to AC and highlight the academic pathway in the arts from high school, college, university… our conference is designed to bring together young creatives and local arts professionals to build connections and introduce students to the many arts resources available locally.”
“Fostering the creative spirit and connecting these students to the larger arts community is special, and it’s even better when we can offer a keynote from an artist who has had such a profound altruistic impact,” Jung added.
Presentations will be made by AC faculty, West Texas A&M University faculty and students, as well as some high school faculty. Museum curators, community artists and art experts, as well as representatives from the creative mural Blank Spaces will also lead sessions.
“This event was created to really help build and connect these young artists with people in our community who are making a living as artists doing what they love,” Kennedy said. “This event also creates a connection with our working artists and provides an opportunity to meet these up-and-coming artists and support and invest in them to grow the local art community.”
This event was sponsored by Art Force Amarillo and the AC Foundation. For more information about IGNITE 2024, visit AC online at https://www.actx.edu/ or TPAEA at https://www.tpaea.org/.
