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Art Programs for Youth
Expand your creativity in one of our innovative art classes for youth ages 5 – 12!
The health and safety of our students, instructors, and families is of utmost importance. After careful deliberation and review of the COVID data in Hamilton County, we have determined that a remote format is the safest option for most programming this winter. Programs will be hosted remotely via Zoom*, with some outdoor/distanced in-person opportunities**. In addition, we will be offering an upcoming series of curated Family Night art experience boxes for the whole family to create together.
Logging into Young at Art from home is easy and connects students and their guardians with other young local artists and to high quality arts education designed and led by local professional artists. If you cannot attend one or more of the meetings, they will be recorded*, so you can access instructor demos at a later time.
*Programs hosted via Zoom will be recorded, so participants are asked to complete an Emergency Contact and Photo Release.
8 week Winter 2021 Term: January 27 – March 20
SLIDING SCALE: Kennedy Heights Arts Center strives to make arts accessible to everyone. Sliding scale fees available for those in financial need. Click here to download an application.
CANCELLATION POLICY: Tuition is non-refundable, but can be transferred to another course if the student withdraws at least five days prior to the beginning of the program.
Teen Artists for Change
Teen Artists for Change (TAC) is a program for youth artists and writers, in grades 7-9, who want to make an impact on the world around them. Click here for more information
SOS Art Retrospective: Youth Art Activities
- January 9, 2021 10:00 am - February 20, 2021 3:00 pm
SOS ART’s Mission is to promote, encourage and provide venues for the arts as vehicles for Peace and Justice and for a Better World. A major educational goal of SOS ART is to engage children/youth in the process by exposing..
Young at Art
- Wednesdays and/or Saturdays, January 27, 2021 4:30 pm - January 30, 2021 11:30 am
Ages 5 – 12. Instructors: Latausha Cox & Adoria Maxberry. Young at Art is a community for youth artists, ages 5-12, looking for ways to continually nurture their creativity and ingenuity, while building relationships with others. Different from a class, this club..
Kennedy Heights Arts Center
2021 Summer Camps
SUMMER CAMPS
- Target audience: Youth, Ages 5-13
- Format: we’re cautiously optimistic that we may be able to host camps in person this year, but we strongly encourage instructors develop contingency plans for distance learning in case we need to host camps via Zoom again due to COVID-19
- Camps should be:
- planned around a specific theme
- suitable for students of varying ages and skill levels
- include projects that can be completed over the course of one week
- Themes are highly encouraged.
- Timeframe: weekly camps will be held between: May 31, 2021 – August 6, 2021
- Duration: each camp is 5 days: Monday-Friday from 9:30am-2:30pm
- exception is a 4-day week for July 4th holiday week
- instructors are expected to be at KHAC from 9am-3pm daily
- Compensation: $150/day x 5 days = $750 total
- PROPOSALS DUE: January 21, 2021
Submit proposals here: https://tinyurl.com/KHACcamps
Still have questions? Have some ideas for camps, but aren’t sure if they’re what we’re looking for?
If you’d like to talk through your ideas with Bethany, KHAC’s director of arts engagement and learning prior to submitting your proposals, appointments are available until 1/20/21. If you’d like to discuss your proposals in advance with Bethany, schedule a 1-on-1 call here: https://calendly.com/
2020 Summer Camp @ Home:
Eight engrossing Summer Camps designed and led by local professional artists to keep your child’s imagination engaged, their spirits high, and their connections to community strong from the safety of home this summer.
Each camp includes:
- Five days of immersion into art-making, creative self-expression, and self-directed imaginative play. Online sessions are just the launching pad. Campers use their imaginations as their guide as they become engrossed in creativity throughout each day.
- Indoor/outdoor exploration and observation-based activities to strengthen campers’ perceptions of self, others, and their surroundings.
- Inspired creative challenges to hone campers’ creative problem solving and ingenuity with materials.
- A thoughtful bundle of art supplies provide a material foundation for campers’ creative endeavors (kits will be sanitized for safety and made available for pick up the weekend prior to camp).
- Dynamic remote interactions each day with artist-instructors, peers, and teen mentors to catalyze and reinforce each camper’s dive into their own curiosity.
- Each week will end with a joyful sharing of campers’ projects via Google Meets, an edited video, or possibly in some cases, a socially distanced sharing at the Arts Center.
Camp content will be hosted on Google Classroom, and will include face-to-face interactions & physical activities for 1 hour each day, as well as prerecorded instructional videos so campers can engage and return to project instructions at their own pace.
Camp tuition is reduced from $175 to $100 + $15 materials fee in consideration of the remote format.
Kennedy Heights Arts Center strives to make arts accessible to everyone. Sliding scale fees are available for those in financial need. For more information, download the KHACSlidingScaleRegistrationForm and email to classes@kennedyarts.org or call 513-382-4913 to register over the phone.
CANCELLATION POLICY: We understand that our new remote format may not work for everyone, so if you registered for camp before we announced the change to the remote format, we will provide a full refund if you choose to cancel your registration. Also, if any camps are cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you will also receive a full refund. Otherwise, tuition is non-refundable, but can be transferred to another course if the student withdraws at least five days prior to the beginning of the course.
No events are currently available for registration, please check back later.
Adult and Teen Classes
ADULT/TEEN CLASSES
Explore new ways to create community within a virtual environment––watch your favorite instructors perform live demonstrations, share your progress, and give and receive live feedback. Logging into class from home is easy and connects you to local creatives and high quality arts education designed and led by local professional artists. If you cannot attend one or more of the classes, lessons will be recorded*, so you can access instructor demos at a later time.
*Classes hosted via Zoom will be recorded, so students will need to complete an Emergency Contact and Photo Release.
8 week Winter Term: begins January 25 and runs through March 20
SLIDING SCALE: Kennedy Heights Arts Center strives to make arts accessible to everyone. Sliding scale fees available for those in financial need. Click here to download an application.
CANCELLATION POLICY: Tuition is non-refundable, but can be transferred to another course if the student withdraws at least five days prior to the beginning of the course.
Tellus Zine is a youth-led digital publication, showcasing art and creative writing by young adults from across Greater Cincinnati. Editorial board members are outside-of-the-box artists and writers, in grades 9-12, who feel passionate about sharing their voice and the voice of other teens and who want to build a community of creative young leaders in Cincinnati. Tellus Zine’s mission is to provide a platform for young people to express themselves bravely and creatively as a part of our diverse community. Click here for more information.
Teen Artists for Change
Teen Artists for Change (TAC) is a program for youth artists and writers, in grades 7-9, who want to make an impact on the world around them. Click here for more information.
Intro to Quilting
- Mondays, January 25, 2021 6:00 pm - March 15, 2021 7:30 pm
Intro to Quilting Ages 13- Adult. Instructor: Carole Gary Staples Learn the quilting process and complete your own small quilt project! In this class, you’ll learn how to choose fabrics, follow a quilting pattern, cut fabric, piece a top, make a quilt..
Clay Hand Building
- Mondays, January 25, 2021 6:30 pm - March 15, 2021 8:00 pm
Clay Hand Building Ages 16 – Adult. Instructor: Lynne Gibb. Learn to make functional pottery and sculptural pieces of ceramic art! In this class we will instruct you in the three basic clay hand building forming processes: pinch, slab and coiling. Glazing..
Portrait Drawing
- Tuesdays, January 26, 2021 6:00 pm - March 16, 2021 7:30 pm
Ages 13 – Adult. Instructor: Paul Loehle Learn fundamental and advanced techniques for drawing the human face. We will work together to develop basic skills in black-and-white mediums (primarily graphite pencil and charcoal) toward the goal of drawing human portraits. We’ll focus..
How to Become a Social Photographer
- Wednesdays, January 27, 2021 6:30 pm - March 17, 2021 8:00 pm
Ages 13 – Adult. Instructor: Kailah Ware Learn the ins and outs of smartphone photography and how to get the results you want. Whether you want to jump start your business and need to know how to take product shots, or you’re..
Open Studio (remote)
- Thursdays, January 28, 2021 9:30 am - March 18, 2021 9:30 am
Ages 16 – Adult. Instructor: Lynne Gibb. Explore new ways to create community within a virtual environment––check in with your favorite “studio-mates”, share your progress, and give and receive live feedback. This remote open studio is time for artists of all practices..
Video Game Design
- Thursdays, January 28, 2021 6:00 pm - March 18, 2021 7:30 pm
Ages 13 – Adult. Instructor: Ryan Tinney Learn the basics of video game development and create your very own video games with an editing software called Unity. Lessons and activities will introduce topics such as terrain, character movement, animation, sound design, C#..
Drawing with Soft Pastels
- Thursdays, January 28, 2021 6:30 pm - March 18, 2021 8:00 pm
Ages 13 – Adult. Immerse yourself in a medium that is challenging and rewarding. Soft pastels are unique in their brilliant, vibrant colors, and are too often overlooked by contemporary artists. Through a variety of exercises and demonstrations William Linthicum, a..
Garden of Hope
2020 Creative Community Artist-in-Residence Project with Leesa Haapapuro
Making art together (but apart) during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2020 Creative Community Artist-in-Residence project with Leesa Haapapuro this Spring!
Leesa was in “virtual residence” at Kennedy Heights Arts Center from April 20 – May 31. Working from her studio in Dayton, Ohio, Leesa created four public art installations that serve as messages of hope from our community, to our community. These powerful messages were gleened from online submissions from community members, and translated into the form of plants using “floriography”, the coded language of plants.
The four sculptural installation sites are:
Kennedy Heights Arts Center (6546 Montgomery Road)
Woodford Paideia Academy (3716 Woodford Road)- this has since been removed. You can view pictures of it HERE.
Pleasant Ridge Branch Library (6233 Montgomery Road)
Pleasant Ridge Montessori (5945 Montgomery Road)
A special THANK YOU to our volunteer “Master Gardeners” (Mindy Burger, Michelle Reeves, Diane Roketenetz, Grace Severyn, Carrie Shotwell & family, and Joanie Weidner) who helped create some of the larger plants that make up the installation at Pleasant Ridge Montessori.
We had a wonderful response to our Garden of Hope kits, distributing a total of 86 free kits, which allowed community members to participate in the project by creating your own plant art to spread the message of hope with their neighbors! Completed plant arrangements now adorn front yards, front doors, and are displayed in windows. Take a walk around the neighborhood, and be inspired by these bright messages of positivity! View the interactive map to find other people’s creations. The floriography list is available online here, so you and your neighbors can decode the plant messages.
In conjunction with Leesa’s giant daisy installation at Woodford Paideia Academy, we also distributed 70 free daisy making kits for kids through our “Creativity Kit” program through Cincinnati Public Schools’ lunch pick-up times at the school.
Thank you for joining us in contributing to this collaborative project!
Eventually, once we can gather again, the intent is that community members can bring their smaller plant creations to the Arts Center to be added onto the art installation created by Leesa, and we’ll have a celebration of our “Garden of Hope!”
UPDATE: We are continuing our theme of Garden of Hope by planting Black-eyed Susans for JUSTICE in the front lawn of Kennedy Heights Arts Center to show our solidarity and advocate for an end to racism. Pick up a free black-eyed susan kit on the front porch of KHAC, make it at home, and plant it in the front yard of the Arts Center.
Participation is FREE, thanks to generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, and the Eleanora C. U. Alms Trust, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee.
Leesa Haapapuro is an interdisciplinary artist from Dayton, Ohio, proficient in a wide variety of techniques from stone carving to welding to weaving. Leesa’s efforts to connect with others through her artistic practice are often radical and transformative. She has made socially-engaged, collaborative art projects and site-specific installations with more than 10 communities in Ohio. She received the City of Dayton’s Community Artist award and is a three-time recipient of The Montgomery County Regional Arts and Cultural Individual Artist Fellowship.
No events are currently available for registration, please check back later.
Outreach Programs
We believe that the arts are for everyone. Kennedy Heights Arts Center provides a range of outreach programs that bring the arts out into the community. The goal of these programs is to provide access to high-quality arts education for everyone regardless of economic circumstance.
Our experienced team of arts educators offer ongoing classes as well as one-time programs in schools, libraries, community centers, group homes and other community settings. Some locations have included:
- Pleasant Ridge Montessori
- Silverton Paideia Academy
- Woodford Paideia School
- Academy of World Languages
- Talbert House
- Cincinnati Public Libraries
For more information about participating in one of these outreach programs or about how you can bring Kennedy Heights Arts Center to your organization, please contact our Director of Arts Engagement and Learning.
No events are currently available for registration, please check back later.
Kennedy Heights Arts Center, in partnership with PAR-Projects, offers a range of classes for adults and youth in digital media creation, including: video, photography, animation, graphic design and web design.
No events are currently available for registration, please check back later.
- Tuesday - Friday: 10:00 - 5:00
- Saturday: 11:00 - 4:00
- Closed Sunday - Monday