Each fall for the past 11 years, Sky Valley resident, sculptor and Arts Council board member Kevin Pettelle has been the artist mentor for the Beauty of Bronze art education program in Wenatchee. Over the years, the program has served more than 6,000 fifth graders in Wenatchee’s seven elementary schools, as well as students from nearby Rock Island Elementary and the Wenatchee River Academy private school.
The Beauty of Bronze program is designed to introduce fifth graders to the art in their community while giving them a realistic view of what it means to be an artist and confidence in creating their own works of art.
The Beauty of Bronze program includes:
- A scripted classroom presentation about sculpture and art vocabulary, illustrated with photos of local art.
- Artist biographies to provide related content for classroom lessons in reading and writing.
- A day-long field trip with Kevin Pettelle, to learn how he became an artist, and how he makes his art. Students also get a chance to tour and sketch six sculptures, work in small groups to create a large sculpture out of piles of natural materials and create a small wax sculpture which is later cast into bronze.
- A two-week exhibit of the student sculptures in the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center, along with an artist reception. After the exhibit is over, the sculptures are given to the student artists to keep.
For more details about Wenatchee’s program, read this 2014 Beauty of Bronze article in Wenatchee World
The Sky Valley Arts Council is researching the opportunity of offering a version of the Beauty of Bronze program to students in the Sky Valley. We have drafted an exploratory statement here: Beauty of Bronze Project
Kevin Pettelle has been a sculptor for more than 35 years, devoting himself to the exploration and interpretation of the human figure. Bronze has proven to be Pettelle’s perfect medium, and he has a resume long on commissions that can be seen throughout the Puget Sound, including Future Dreaming in the Sultan City Hall. Read more about his work here – Soul in Bronze
For more information or to support this project contact Kevin Pettelle 425.268.8904/ kpettelle@skyvalley.net or Jeanette Marantos 509.630.1398/ jemarantos@gmail.com
Sky Valley Arts Council 