Left to right, Living Arts and Science Center executive director Heather Lyons, gallery director Jeffrey Nichols and marketing director Kristin Voskuhl. Photo by Hattie Quik
Tanya Finley’s daughter, Jade, is a 17-year-old high school senior. Next year, she’ll attend Eastern Kentucky University, becoming the first member of her family to matriculate. She hopes to study art therapy.
Thirteen years ago, college seemed like a long shot. Jade, you see, is autistic.
“She had very little language at all,” remembered her mother, a 30-year assembly line veteran at the pneumatic component manufacturer Aventics.
That changed once Jade began participating in discovery programs at Lexington’s Living Arts and Science Center (LASC), an interactive museum and gallery space that provides a unique blend of science and art education to the Commonwealth’s schoolchildren.
Jade became more curious about the world around her, her mother recalled. Her communication and social skills rapidly improved. She manifested a talent for art.
“[Jade] always loved the ceramic classes, the pottery classes and the painting classes — anything that incorporated art and science,” said Finley. “I remember her saying that she’d found a place that she really liked.
“I saw changes in her from the first time she took a class down there,” Finley continued. “You never know when you’ll find a little surprise niche that was hidden.”
Promoting self-discovery is at the core of LASC’s work, said marketing director Kristin Voskuhl.
“In science, you have to use a lot of creative thinking and problem-solving,” she proffered. “Those same skills are found in art. That’s what we like to cultivate here.”
Jeffrey Nichols, a ceramicist who has served as the LASC’s gallery director for the past seven years, agreed.
“When you look at scientific theory and art theory, they’re [often] the same,” he testified. “We think of art as just free play, but this is another language. It’s a visual language.”
“It makes a positive difference in any person’s life when they’re given that opportunity to explore, to imagine, to create, to solve problems, to do something differently,” said LASC executive director Heather Lyons.
“People sometimes think of art as optional, that it’s maybe only for kids who show promise,” she added. “We often hear parents say, ‘Oh, he’s not very artistic.’ But creativity is something that is learned through doing.”
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
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Bill Straus
Through hosting field trips, after-school programs, classes and workshops and other outreach programs, the LASC is a beacon for encouraging or Kentucky schoolchildren to explore science and creativity. Photo by Bill Straus
50 Years of Filling the STEAM Gap ... and More
“Learned through doing” is a consistent refrain in the historic George Kinkead mansion, home to the LASC since the 1970s.
The center was first organized in 1968 by a group of mothers concerned that funding cuts to the public schools were jeopardizing children’s access to quality science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education.
One of its early champions was the late Marion “Shug” Graves, who served as president of its board. Her eldest son, Gregory Pettit, serves on the center’s current board.
“My mother was passionate about the right of every child to get a well-rounded education,” Pettit remembered. “She thought it was a terrible shame that because of a person’s birth circumstances, they didn’t have the same opportunity for an equal education.”
Supporting the LASC, he said, “was perhaps her largest manifestation of making sure that kids got an equal break.”
Pettit readily recalled his mother’s frenetic efforts during the 1970s to organize donations for the center’s Action Auction TV fundraiser, which annually aired over three consecutive summer nights.
“I remember her recruiting people in the business community to financially support it and get involved. Banks, hardware stores. The stockyards donated a bull,” he said with a chuckle.
“There were Thoroughbreds up for auction. There was a whole lot of scurrying around to get things organized.”
Like Pettit’s, the LASC family roots of current board president Emmy Hartley run deep. Her mother, Mary, and her grandmother, Eloise Sturgill, also previously served on its board.
“They both believed in its mission and the value it brings,” she remembered. “Their involvement inspired me.”
In contrast to a world in which “so many of our interactions and ways we experience things are on a screen,” Hartley said she is thrilled to be part of organization that “offers an environment for hands-on learning.”
“Fostering that love of learning and curiosity in children at an early age has immeasurable benefits,” she asserted.
Pettit agreed and pointed out that the organization’s mission has evolved to include two other important roles. First, he said, the LASC provides critical support and exposure to Kentucky’s arts community.
“From the very beginning, they were part of Gallery Hop and still are,” Pettit observed. “It wasn’t part of their initial mandate, but it’s something they do anyway.”
Second, “they embrace diversity,” he said. “You’ll find kids of every creed and color who are celebrated at the LASC.”
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Completed in 2016, LASC’s state-of-the-art addition added 15,000 square feet of gallery and studio space, classrooms and other teaching areas, a planetarium and more. Photo furnished
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Completed in 2016, LASC’s state-of-the-art addition added 15,000 square feet of gallery and studio space, classrooms and other teaching areas, a planetarium and more. Photo by Hattie Quik
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Completed in 2016, LASC’s state-of-the-art addition added 15,000 square feet of gallery and studio space, classrooms and other teaching areas, a planetarium and more. Photo by Hattie Quik
Spreading Enlightenment
In the beginning, LASC programs were housed out of its volunteer teachers’ car trunks, as they travelled from school to school.
Today, the center has expanded greatly, adding a state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot contemporary addition in 2016. Its 12 staffers rely on a network of more than 50 vetted, professional educators to produce its in-house programs, host field trips and present its Wonders on Wheels (WOW) school-based events, which help the organization serve approximately 60 Kentucky counties.
“It’s a lot of coordinating,” Voskuhl said with a laugh. “Who can do pre-K art day? Who can be in Boyle County? How are we going to get teachers for 100 classes during the summer?”
Demand for programs afield, Lyons asserted, often outstrips the LASC’s staffing resources to produce them. That’s the organization’s biggest challenge and, by her account, a good problem to have.
But she worries about proposed state and federal slashes to arts and education funding, which she believes would disproportionately limit rural students’ learning opportunities.
“This organization was founded because of the lack of art and science in the schools. Five decades later, there’s still a tremendous lack of art and science in the schools,” Lyons lamented.
“It shouldn’t just be something that happens for kids in some schools, or kids in some parts of town,” she emphasized. “There are kids who come here who almost never leave their county, except on field trips.”
Estimating the LASC’s Impact
Jade Finley’s success story isn’t the only one. Several parents shared remarkably similar anecdotes.
Lora Muhammad grew up attending LASC programs. Years later, her own children – especially her seventh-grade daughter, Saudia – have demonstrated learning benefits from its classes.
“All of the teachers at the center have given Saudia a safe place to express herself,” Muhammad emphasized. “She is better able to collaborate with other students on projects, [whereas] this may have been more challenging for her in the past.”
And, because the LASC “attracts students of all ages, backgrounds and abilities,” Muhammad observed, Saudia “has made friends from all walks of life.”
“She’s learning at a young age how to interact with people who look like her and with people who don’t, and how to help people when they ask for it,” she said.
Likewise, LASC classes have creatively nourished Jayme Olson’s daughter, Veronica, a gifted fourth-grader at Tates Creek Elementary. She took her first embroidery class last year at the LASC; now, “it’s one of her favorite hobbies.”
Veronica “is definitely more open to trying new things,” her mother affirmed. “I see a boost in her confidence.”
Muhammad called the LASC “a jewel in our community.”
“These are people who like teaching young people and get a kick out of presenting information in ways that may be out of the box,” she said. “It’s allowed me to continue to expose my child to quality enrichment programming.”
“They’ve always encouraged my daughter and me,” Finley added, intimating that such encouragement might be the most positive, important aspect of the center’s work.
“If I were to hit the lottery, they’d be the first charity I’d give a really big donation to,” she said with a laugh. “I’m glad that they’ve expanded and that people in the community continue to support them.”
Rob Bolson
The Living Arts & Science Center's annual H'ArtFul of Fun is the organization's signature fundraising event. Photo furnished
H’ArtFul of Fun Golden Gala
April 28, 7-11 p.m. • Living Arts & Science Center,
362 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. • www.lasclex.org
The Living Arts and Science Center will celebrate its 50th anniversary throughout 2018, with special celebratory events scheduled every month. Among the most anticipated is the 2018 H’ArtFul of Fun, the organization’s signature fundraising event, which will include a silent and live auction featuring original art and other goodies; live music from Lee Carroll’s Soul Jazz Trio; catering from Dupree Catering; unlimited spirits; art- and science-filled surprises and more.