Homestead Art Collective Starts Summer Classes

By Theresa Bradley, The Miami Herald

Jun. 1–In a series of 19 different evening, afternoon and weekend courses, the Homestead art collective is offering students 11 and older the chance to study under a dozen of the artists-in-residence at its North Krome Avenue complex starting next week.

Classes include ceramics and fashion design, porcelain painting, jewelry making, watercolor and welding. Each accepts three to six students and meets for six-week sessions starting June 5 and July 17.

“It’s just a really creative atmosphere for the community to come in and learn something new and express some kind of idea or emotion that they might not be able to anywhere else,” said Jessica Shoemaker, education coordinator at ArtSouth.

Enrollment in most courses costs $145 plus materials; ArtSouth members get a $20 discount on class fees.

Several workshops costing $50 each are available on weekends or by appointment.

ArtSouth first opened in downtown Homestead in 2001, the brainchild of clay artist Ellie Schneiderman, who helped create the Grove House in Coconut Grove in the 1970s and, in the ’80s, ArtCenter/South Florida in Miami Beach.

Nearly 40 painters, sculptors and welders are now in residence at the nonprofit collective.

Besides fall and winter courses, artists hold paid workshops for school kids on field trips year-round. They teach weekly classes for students from MacArthur South High School and instruct kids enrolled in the enFamilia after-school program that shares part of ArtSouth’s main building.

This summer marks the first under interim ArtSouth director Carlos Salgado, who replaced Aubree Bretsnyder earlier this year.

For more information, call 305-247-9406 or see class schedule at www.artsouthhomestead.org.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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