EMPOWER ART

Girls Ages 8-14—10 week session—8 girls per cohort

Funded by the Kentucky Foundation for Women

Empower Art is not an art class. It is a space. Eight girls. Ten weeks. A dedicated creative environment that belongs entirely to them—where they make art about their own lives, study the stories of strong women artists and discover that what they have to say is worth saying out loud.

Girls begin by decorating papers and constructing their own hand-bound artisan journals using Japanese stab binding—books they make themselves and fill with their own stories drawn and written. They create vision boards exploring who they are and who they are becoming. They are photographed and those are printed as large-format posters they decorate in the style of artist Stan Squirewell—collaging and painting their own messages into something bold and beautiful.

They study the work of powerful female artists—Marlow Moss, Lisa Brice, Betye Saar, Lee Krasner-and create original paintings and drawings in their styles. Together they collaborate to create a large mural focused on female strength and achievement. And they produce a short animated video about empowerment—every girl’s voice in the final film. The program closes with a public exhibition where every girl’s work hangs on professional gallery walls for the community to see.

In one Empower Art session, two girls began trading stories—quietly, without prompting—about the times they had lived in hotels and on people’s couches because they had no home. They told those stories in the Kids Zone. To each other. While making art.

This is what this space is designed to make possible.

All programs are free. No cost to children or families.

Funded by the Kentucky Foundation for Women.