Children participating at the Cochise College Youth Arts Festival.
The Cochise College Sierra Vista Campus held its third annual Youth Arts Festival this Saturday. This event was a collaboration between the Sierra Vista Arts & Humanities Commission and the Cochise College Art Department.
“The goal of this festival is for local families to have the opportunity to discover their children’s talents and interests in the arts,” Said Virginia Thomson, a Cochise College art instructor. “It is also a fun-filled outing for local families to spend quality time together exploring the arts.”
The event displayed live performances throughout the course of the day as well as a prize drawing at the end. This public event provided youth, grades k-8, with arts, crafts, creative writing and performing arts activities. This year there were seventeen activity stations with twelve local artists and thirty-two volunteers. Local artists from Sierra Vista ran many of the activity stations, assisted by volunteers from the college and the community.
Gabrielle LaFargue, a calligrapher and local artist, volunteered at the event and helped the children with decorative letter techniques.
“The children were very creative using just decorative paper, a pair of scissors and a bit of glue,” LaFargue said.
Carolyn Yeutter, also a local artist from Sierra Vista, provided children and their parents with playdough, pipe cleaners, buttons, feathers and googly eyes during the festivities.
“I’ve had children as young as 2 and their fathers sit down together and make crafts to take home,” said Yeutter.
Over 250 participants came to the event to help celebrate the arts in Cochise County. To find out more about Cochise College family-friendly events, contact Cochise College at (800) 966-7943.