Summer camp teaches students about art, nature

Kim advises the kids how to pet the horses

Two curious spectators poke their noses
into the barn to watch art creation. Kim
(right) advises the kids how to pet
Dreamer (left) and Nipper.

There’s nothing fancy about the name of the camp. There’s art, and it’s created in a barn. But to the 70-plus kids who attended this year’s summer Art Barn camp, everything about it seemed fancy, from the projects to the scenery. Students learned how to make paper, wind socks and air-powered rockets. They created their own water slide. And they learned to see nature as an art store, rather than just as grass and trees.

Capital Electric Cooperative member Kim Eslinger started Art Barn camp three years ago at her family’s home northwest of Bismarck. Back then, one of her many jobs included running an after-school program at Jeanette Myrhe Elementary School. Several parents came to her, looking for constructive activities for their children over the summer. Kim considered their requests, time and financial constraints, and then thought about her own passion for art and children. The camp became the perfect solution to fill students’ free time while teaching them about Kim’s favorite things: art and nature.

With an appreciation for the outdoors and what nature can offer, Kim taught students to dig down deep in her horse pasture, which used to be a Missouri River sandbar. They eventually dug deep enough to find clay. They asked her if the clay exists everywhere underground, and for many of the students who live on Capital Electric lines in that neighborhood, it does.

Rachel Patrie watches as an art student paints a stick

Capital Electric member and art assistant
Rachel Patrie watches as art student
Joseph Wolfe paints a stick.

The students collected the clay and created containers, animals and sculptures.

“I get such a charge when I see a kid take a concept that we’ve used, and then use it somewhere else and really own it. … My goal is to introduce them to concepts and hope their creativity will take over,” she says.

Through word of mouth, both from exuberant kids and grateful parents, the camp has grown. This June, Kim taught three sessions which lasted four days each, broken into age groups. The projects for each camp year are the same, but Kim says she makes it more challenging for the older kids.

Whether it’s the kindergarten through second grade group (which Kim affectionately refers to as “controlled chaos”) or grades three and four, or five and six, the students take North Dakota art to a higher level.

Proud of her students and their desire to create, Kim says she gets as much out of the camp as they do. “I love being with kids and I like their energy,” Kim says. “This is the highlight of my summer.”