Kline is leading a new program, offered by the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Rutgers in Newark that will offer Saturday art classes on the campus for high school students in the northern New Jersey area. To make the program as accessible as possible, the entire program is being offered for only a $300 fee that includes all art materials and field trips. RUN Art will begin on Feb. 10, 2007, by offering a 10-week college-level program in Drawing 1, team-taught by Kline and fellow R-N art professor Emanuele Cacciatore. The ten, three-hour Saturday sessions (ending April 28; no classes on March 10 and March 17) will be limited to a maximum of 20 students, so students can benefit from individual attention from the two instructors.
Works created during the program help build student portfolios that can be submitted for undergraduate college admission, Kline notes.
Eventually the curriculum will be expanded to include graphic design, painting, photography, video computer animation, motion graphics, sculpture, printmaking, illustration, art history and writing. Kline and Cacciatore also plan to offer intensive four-week workshops during the summer months, each workshop meeting four times a week.
RUN Art classes are open to freshmen through senior-year students, and no previous art background or art class experience is necessary, says Kline. Were interested in any student who has a fascination with art, not only students who already know they want to study art in college or pursue art as a career, he explains. Kline is a former high school art teacher, and Cacciatore teaches art to children in addition to teaching at Rutgers.
Kline recalls that he was a high school student with no idea of what he wanted to do with his life when his dad spotted an intriguing ad in the local paper. An art school was offering a special summer program for high school students. I liked art, so I attended, and I was hooked. The teachers and the program inspired me to become an artist and a photographer. One of his and Cacciatores dreams for the RUN Art program is to have a similar impact on some of their students, perhaps even inspiring them to pursue art studies at Rutgers in Newark.
But the two professors also have a more elemental goal: to bring the energy of the arts to high school students and open their eyes to the social, expressive and aesthetic values of art. We want young people to see how art can enrich their everyday lives; art is for everyone, not just an elite few, says Kline.
RUN Art also reflects the Department of Visual and Performing Arts goal to raise its involvement in the community and use its urban location to provide experiential learning opportunities for its students. Art grows out of urban life the city can inspire art and artists, says Kline.
Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. All sessions will be in Bradley Hall, 110 Warren St. To register for the Drawing I class, contact Nick Kline, director of RUN Art, at 973/353-5119, ext. 43, or domkline@andromeda.rutgers.edu
The Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Rutgers in Newark offers programs in Fine Arts, Art History, Theater Arts, Television and Media Arts, Journalism and Media studies. Rutgers in Newark also offers one of the strongest Graphic Design programs in the State of New Jersey. For more information, please go to