Participants See Themselves as Artists in Santa Rosa

With new venue coordinator, Jessica Rassmussen, stepping right in to take over organizing the 12th NAP Exhibit in the City of Santa Rosa, the show didn’t miss a beat!  With 199 participating artists exhibiting their artwork, it’s not always an easy task, but Jessica did a tremendous job making sure that everything ran smoothly and that everyone involved had a professional experience participating in an art show. 

 

Whether it’s their first time participating or they are a seasoned artist, the NAP show strive to provide a professional art show experience for those involved.  This even includes our coordinators and the Santa Rosa show did just that for Jessica.  She mentioned this in passing about her involvement with the NAP, “Wow, this is my first year around with the National Arts Program®, and it is such a wonderful experience! Seeing people light up, and be proud to call themselves artists, some for the first time, is just amazing.”   

 

Participants actually recognizing themselves as artists is a major part of the National Arts Program® exhibitions.  However, our Santa Rosa venue takes encouraging their participants to see themselves as artists one step further than just participating in our show.  They present the largest number of NAP Continuing Art Education Scholarship Awards out of all our venues across the county. This year was no different with twenty-four scholarship awards were given to artists ranging from Youth 12 & Under to Professional.  Artists who receive these awards have the opportunity to take an art classes to help further their artistic education, all at no charge to themselves.  The funds are provided by local organizations and matched, dollar for dollar by the NAP.  Our hope is that this additional education will inspire these artists to create more artwork to enter in next year’s exhibition.