Art Reach ‘Reaches’ Out to Mount Pleasant Community

Story by Jordan Raes
Video & Photos by Devon Rademacher 

Art Reach of Mid Michigan is a non-profit organization that has been in the community since 1981. Located downtown, it was started by a few members in the community that wanted to keep the arts alive. 

Art Reach puts on classes for all age groups. They also work on reaching out to schools in multiple counties in Michigan.

 

“The outreach we provide in the school situations serves anywhere from 10,000 to 12,000 students a year,” Art Reach Executive Director Amy Powell said.

Powell hopes that in the next five years the classes at Art Reach will grow. She also wants their “space to be busy all the time.”

She hopes to add more programs to the already long list of classes Art Reach offers, including tie-dye, Henna art and woodburning. 

“I would like to add some programs in a way that are building on skills,” Powell said. Art Reach has done some classes that are a few weeks long, but a majority are one time classes.

One of the classes Art Reach puts on, seen in the video above, is an experimental painting class. This classes consisted of two sessions for children.

“This group is experimenting with lots of different kinds of painting techniques,” she said. “They are learning a variety of different mediums and how the mediums work together and it gives them a base knowledge.

“The Festival of Banners” is the biggest event for Art Reach and they are already planning for the festival in 2018.

Theses banners hang for six months in the Mt. Pleasant and Shepard communities.

“We engage with a lot of the schools in the area as well as any other artist who would like to paint a banner,” Powell said. “That is a great way to have art in the community available for the public to see. It’s really a collaborative effort.”

Powell said art is important to not only children, but to the overall community as well.