But instead of a 45-minute class, the camps run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at KCYA’s facility at 3732 Main Street in Kansas City.

LINC has teamed up with KCYA since 2009 to bring its teaching artists into schools to provide free classes for the same reason that KCYA is giving LINC children free access to its summer camps.

“We want to remove all the barriers” that might stand between children and the power of art, Arvizu said. “We’re all in this together.”

In one recent week of camp, Friday’s showcases presented children who created fanciful face masks, performed story-telling folk tunes, and who had written, casted, practiced and ultimately performed a theater play.

The camp is led by artists from the same fleet of talent that visits LINC’s programs during the regular school year.

The in-school classes are designed with an eye toward matching and enhancing the curriculum in both the school and after-school programs, Arvizu said. The classes aim to bring children into the arts wherever they might be in their growth, and enrich the classroom’s education, culture and behavior.

The excitement in the LINC students during KCYA programs in after-school time is telling, said Sean Akridge, LINC’s Caring Communities Administrator.

“If parents come early to pick their kids up, the kids say they want their parents to wait until it’s over,” Akridge said.

The children are getting a taste of what’s possible in their lives that they might not otherwise have gotten, he said.

“They get something they can connect to,” he said, “something they can own and integrate into who they are.”

About a decade after French educator Louis Braille invented the eponymous system for blind and sight-impaired readers, the New England Institution for Education of the Blind released its own embossed designs allowing those with low or no vision access to important information. Under the leadership of Samuel Gridley Howe, the school, which is now the Perkins School for the Blind, acquired a printing press in 1835 and began to create a variety of learning materials with raised writing for its students. One of those books was an atlas of the United States, which held touchable cartography within its pages.

Paired with descriptions written in standard Latin script—this proved much more difficult to read than braille and never gained the popularity of its counterpart—the maps contain typical information like longitude and latitude, along with the area’s population, climate, and commerce. Solid lines denote rivers, a singular raised shoreline buttressed by parallel lines represents oceans, and clustered triangles are mountains. Printed in 1837 in an edition of 50, this version of the atlas contains just 24 states. Only four copies are known to remain.

Flip through digital scans of the book at David Rumsey Map Associates. (via Kottke)

New Hampshire

Rhode Island

Ohio

Illinois

Pennsylvania

New Jersey

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Page Through a 19th-Century Embossed U.S. Atlas Designed with Touchable Cartography for Blind Students appeared first on Colossal.

Kentucky Crafted is an arts marketing program that provides assistance to visual and craft artists through networking, promotional and sales opportunities and business training.

The purpose of the program is to support professional visual and craft artists and promote a diverse selection of high quality art in Kentucky. In addition to being added to the Kentucky Crafted Directory, adjudicated visual and craft artists are eligible to exhibit at the Kentucky Crafted Market and other events sponsored by the program.

Visual and craft artists who do original work in any medium, are full-time residents of Kentucky and are 18 years of age or older are eligible to apply. Applicants should have a well-developed body of work and some marketing experience.

Potential applicants should read through the complete application guidelines prior to starting their application.

The deadline to apply is Aug. 15, 2023, 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Prior to the deadline prospective applicants are encouraged to attend one or more Q&A sessions, hosted on Zoom, where you can ask arts council staff questions about the application process. Please fill out this online form if you are interested in attending a Q&A session and we will email you information about when and how to join the conversation.

For more information about the Kentucky Crafted program, contact David Blevins at david.blevins@ky.gov or 502-892-3120.

A new solo exhibition by Banksy, the UK’s most famous anonymous artist, has opened at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in Glasgow – his first in 14 years.

The graffiti artist was drawn to exhibit in Glasgow ostensibly because of his interest in the symbolism of “Coneheid” – the red traffic cone permanently adorning the head of the Duke of Wellington statue that stands on a plinth outside GoMA. It is, Banksy says, his “favourite work of art in the UK”.

The show, Cut and Run, spans the career of the artist who has been described as “notoriously cryptic, darkly humorous … a global phenomenon, a personality without a persona, a criminal without a record, and a paradox within the world of art.”

Originally influenced by the work of Xavier Pru – AKA father of stencil graffiti Blek le Rat – Banksy has become a major player in the urban and contemporary art world, generating controversy and publicity through his distinctive and creative approach.

Popular with the public and highly valued by the art world, Banksy’s works convey powerful messages via simple but arresting images. His early transgressive artwork was seen by some as vandalism, but for many others, Banksy is an important counter voice subverting the dominant narrative of capitalism.

The Bristol-based artist is a humanitarian and peace activist, using his wealth to benefit many charitable causes. His artworks raise awareness of political iniquities and challenge social injustices, such as the war in Ukraine, refugee crises, homelessness, global warming, police violence, apartheid, misogyny and racism. These are invariably set within a satirical, witty and humorous style that often confronts those in power.

The Glasgow-Banksy connection

The red traffic cone has historically been placed on Wellington’s head by revellers to signify a great night out in the city and is now an iconic part of Glasgow’s heritage and marketing. It holds great meaning for Glaswegians in its anti-elitist and anti-establishment message, contributing to their social and cultural capital.

It’s also a reminder of the extent to which the expression of all forms of culture have been central to Glasgow’s regeneration over recent decades. First came the Burrell Collection in 1983, followed by the International Garden Festival in 1988, which built momentum towards a successful bid for the European City of Culture in 1990 – a life-changing accolade for a city notorious for its poverty, violence and the lowest life expectancy in Europe.

But the connection between Banksy and the city goes much deeper. Both have a history of actively supporting humanitarian causes. Glasgow was the first anti-apartheid city to support Nelson Mandela with a street near the South African consulate renamed to honour him while he was still in prison. It also has a proud reputation for welcoming and defending refugees, and supporting them throughout the city.

Glasgow City Council has promoted street art by commissioning and funding murals around the city which have become an urban attraction. Glasgow also hosts the annual Yardworks Festival which is an internationally renowned celebration of urban art.

Glaswegians are known for their friendliness and irreverent humour which resonates with Banksy’s works. The city has actively resourced artists as part of its cultural policy and has been named the UK’s top cultural and creative city in a landmark report by the European Commission. The Banksy exhibition will undoubtedly boost Glasgow’s reputation as a centre of creative dynamism.

What to expect

The exhibition starts with a re-creation of his studio space, featuring for the first time the stencils used to create many of his most famous works. Banksy has used these original stencils to create new versions of these works, including Kissing Coppers, which first appeared on a wall of the Prince Albert pub in Brighton in 2004.

It will also feature Banksquiat: Boy and Dog in Stop and Search, Banksy’s homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat which was displayed on a wall near the Barbican in London as an unofficial collaboration with the art centre’s 2017 Basquiat show. A critique of the often-racist nature of police stop-and-search powers, it sold in May 2023 for an astonishing $9,724,500 (£7,646,277).

The infamous shredding mechanism of Banksy’s Girl with Balloon is also showcased in the exhibition. In 2018, just after it was purchased at auction for £1 million, the canvas was passed through a secret shredder hidden inside the frame, leaving the bottom half in tatters with only the solitary red balloon untouched.

Three years later this iconic artwork was renamed Love in the Bin and auctioned at Sotheby’s for a mind-bending £18,852,000.

A more recent work from his Borodyanka Ukraine series, a stencil of a young female gymnast performing a handstand, balancing on a damaged building in Ukraine, is also on show. While creating this work on a bombed-out building, a local resident remonstrated with Banksy and threatened to call the police.

Banksy has been in the vanguard a new art form that was birthed in street art but has matured to include a strategic use of different kinds of media – graffiti, film, performance, digital and social media – all of which have the capacity to maximise the impact of his message in real time with a global reach.

It feels significant that Banksy has chosen a once-blighted Scottish city that redeemed itself through the arts for his first show in more than a decade. A shared sense of humour, humanitarian values and a disregard for the establishment mean Banksy’s show will be well-received in Glasgow.