Life-Changing Art: BAM Schools At-Risk Kids

Photograph by Flickr user FHKE.

Last summer, California’s Ellen Herbert had never even heard of Bellevue. Now the Seattle University grad student is the education intern at Bellevue Arts Museum, where she is launching an unprecedented art program for at-risk youth.

“As an outsider coming into Bellevue, I looked around and thought, ‘Wow, this must be a really nice town. It looks as though there’s a lot of people with high incomes here,’” Herbert says. “What people don’t realize is there is a population of underserved youth in Belle-vue who are susceptible to risky behavior.” 

At twenty-six, Herbert has a lot of experience helping risky kids in gritty Riverside, California. “I’ve seen it up close – the power of art, and how it can really change somebody,” says Herbert. 

For ten weeks starting this month, Herbert will work with Bellevue’s alternative high school, Robinswood, and art teacher Colleen Graham. “We cater to students who for whatever reason aren’t successful in a normal high school setting,” Graham says. That can mean anything from poor attendance to teen pregnancy. Some Robinswood students work on art every day at lunch and after school; others feel as though art doesn’t matter. “My challenge is helping them make the connections between art and their lives,” says Graham. 

There is a connection, says BAM education curator Patrick McMahon, Herbert’s boss. An Americans for the Arts study in 2000 showed that students involved in the arts are far less involved in delinquent behavior. McMahon is inviting professional artists to guide Graham’s students once a week. They’re teaching art skills and life skills. “We exist as a community organization and an arts organization,” says McMahon. “This program combines both.”

In June, BAM will show off the program’s culminating project. Herbert’s goal is for the kids to produce something as inspiring as The Great Wall of Los Angeles, the famous 1980s mural at-risk kids made for Herbert’s idol, artist Judy Baca. “Art can be truly transformational,” says Herbert, “especially at this critical age.” •