One City Arts program gets boost from Wells Fargo Center

Artist Maria de los Angeles will be returning to her hometown of Santa Rosa this summer to once again offer free art classes for children.

De los Angeles, who just completed graduate studies in art at Yale University, is teaming up with the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, which is officially taking over the One City Arts project she launched last summer.

De los Angeles said she’ll continue to teach the two-week summer art camp, which she created in response to the shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez.

“It’s fantastic,” she said about the partnership. “I wasn’t sure I could do the program alone.”

She said part of the challenge was finding the money and materials to teach art to 50 students. The Wells Fargo Center will help her with that, she said.

“We wanted to ensure that the program would have the resources to continue for the long term,” said Anne Abrams, a center spokeswoman.

De los Angeles raised $20,000 last year for the program. Center officials said they haven’t determined this year’s budget. However, they plan on raising enough money to fully fund the project.

“The goal of this program - to make the arts accessible to all children in our community at no cost, allowing them the freedom to express themselves and find their own voice - aligns perfectly with the center’s mission,” Abrams said.

The camp will be held from July 6 through 17 at Cook Middle School. Registration should start in early June, Abrams said.

Registration information will be posted on the “camps” section of the center’s website: ?wellsfargocenterarts.org.

De los Angeles started the art program at Cook Middle School last summer as a way to help children cope with the death of Lopez. Both she and Lopez had been students at Cook.

De los Angeles worked with some kids in expressing their grief through artwork. She also taught the students about blending paint colors and using continuous lines to create images - techniques she said are taught at the college level.

Their artwork was displayed in a one-day exhibit at the Wells Fargo Center.

De los Angeles, who after a summer stay in Santa Rosa will be teaching color theory at Pratt Institute School of Art in Brooklyn for a year, hopes to inspire young people to pursue careers in the creative arts. She said many of the students who took part in the free program last summer would have not been able to afford art classes otherwise - something she personally understands.

“It was hard for me to have access to art when I was growing up in Santa Rosa,” she said. “Something like this (camp) was not around for me.”

You can reach Staff Writer Eloísa Ruano González at 521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@?pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @eloisanews.