Bella Workshop

Learning for Life (LfL) BELLA is a four day art workshop for secondary school students participating in The Smith Family’s Learning for Life suite of programs.

Since its inception in October 2002, The Smith Family has offered two LfL BELLA workshops a year, in April and October. Attendees are selected from LfL scholarship students in Years 10 and 11, who are studying art, intend to continue studying art and are interested in ultimately working in an art related field. The workshops are generally comprised of twelve participants.

Initially students were drawn from the Sydney Metropolitan region, but since October 2005, the opportunity has been offered to students from regional and rural NSW.

The workshop is conducted at the Museum of Contemporary Art and includes an additional half-day visit to Sydney College of the Arts (SCA). In 2009, the students also visited the One+2 studios in Rozelle to meet six artists working there, hear about their work, the process of creation and what it means to be an artist.

The Smith Family supplements the MCA planned artistic experience with an after hours program of activities designed to broaden the experience of young people visiting the city for the first time.

The opportunity to interact with students from different backgrounds and experience, to build social relations and learn something of working together as a team adds significantly to the artistic challenge.

During the day, students work on their art, guided by an artist and two purpose-trained art educators. By the conclusion of the workshop, each student will have had the chance to experiment with different art forms, techniques and media, be guided in their choice of an art style for their Major Art work for the Higher School Certificate and to create an art portfolio. The week culminates with an exhibition of students’ work to which parents, teachers and the funding bodies are invited.

The LfL BELLA workshop involves TSF in three separate partnerships with:

• MCA (program design and specialist artistic input)
• Mallesons Stephens Jacques (funders)
• Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) – (both funders and art experience)

To date, a total of 106 students have attended LfL BELLA workshops. The 12 students this year covered the regional areas of Tamworth, Taree, Central Coast, Illawarra andt the ACT. Student responses to the program are almost invariably positive and often include comments that they wish the program ran for longer – it’s the best thing they have ever done! Parents also respond favourably about the program – they describe it as an ’enormously valuable experience’ in which ‘everything is thought of’.