Among the Durango Arts Center’s (DAC) most impactful arts education opportunities is the elementary arts enrichment program – After School Art – provided in each of the 9-R elementary schools, throughout the academic year.  As the only program of its kind currently serving our community, annually DAC enrolls 751+ children in sessions to explore creative self-expression through a variety of visual art mediums including painting, drawing, ceramics, weaving and sculpture.  Repeated research illustrates the link between arts education and what we want for our children and expect from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity.  Involvement in the arts is associated with gains in math, reading, cognitive ability, and verbal skills.  Arts learning can also improve motivation, concentration, self-esteem, and teamwork.

The After School Art program is held weekly (one-hour classes) at each of the elementary schools, the monthly sessions enroll 12 students to ensure personalized attention.  Sessions are themed (such as art around the world, architecture, folk art, impressionism), with age-appropriate art/artist history lessons and a fine art project.  All art supplies are provided by DAC and classes are led by teaching artists with curriculum aligned with district and State of Colorado standards.

To provides arts access to every child who desires to participate, the Durango Arts Center assumes full responsibility in disbursing need-based scholarship support, made possible with generous sponsorship of the Martin Family Fund, Durango Education Foundation, Durango Friends of the Arts and the Community Foundation serving Southwest Colorado.

Since 2002, the Girls’ Opportunities through Art and Leadership (GOAL) program has provided middle/high school girls with unique opportunities for skill-building and problem-solving in the areas of identity, creativity, and self-esteem. With an emphasis on art making, GOAL is led by local female artistic role models who engage the students in visual and performing arts experiences. While developing their artistic skills, students learn to use the resources within themselves and in their environment to create a vision for their present and future and to work towards their goals and dreams.

Over the course of the camp, GOAL students spend their time focusing on the visual arts in the areas of painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, photography, printmaking and collage with an added exploration each day on creative writing, poetry, movement and performance.

GOAL serves 12 students per session, and is offered three times per year including a week summer camp, fall Saturday sessions and winter monthly Saturday sessions.

• GOAL is proud to promote overall community responsibility of youth development.
• GOAL has served approximately 500 young studens since inception and will celebrate 20 years on June 9, 2022.
• GOAL scholarship requests average 25% of total registrants each year, therefore community support is paramount in DAC’s continued success of broad outreach to girls of all economic circumstances.

Participants of the GOAL program are nominated by peers, teachers, parents and community members.  For more information, or to contribute to a GOAL scholarship, please contact Deena Carney, Visual Arts Education Director at deena@durangoarts.org or (970) 259-2606, Ext 15.

BoysART (BART) was established in 2015 as a companion to the popular G.O.A.L. program for art-loving boys going into or currently enrolled in Middle/High School (Ages 12-17).

Participants of the BART program are invited through a nomination process by peers, teachers, parents and community members.  For more information please contact Deena Carney, Visual Arts Education Director at deena@durangoarts.org or (970) 259-2606, Ext 15.

BART is supported by:

Adult classes and workshops have been offered at DAC continually since we opened the education studio in 2010.  Exercise your inner artist at DAC with our art workshops of a variety of mediums such as drawing, painting, ceramics/hand-building, figure-drawing, and other less traditional techniques like stitching, glass-fusion, and encaustics.  Learn more here.

Creativity Festivity is our community’s annual celebration of art and artists in our local schools, coordinated by DAC for over 20 years.  Throughout the two-week celebration each spring, DAC hosts several events and opportunities for local youth to share their work with the greater arts community in Durango.  During the month of April, DAC will celebrate the children and their artwork in our local communities

Activities during Creativity Festivity include an exhibit featuring work of k-12th grade students in the Barbara Conrad Gallery, theater, art activities for the entire family.