Thea Foundation's Arts Reconstruction

Thea Foundation’s Arts Reconstruction program is focused on providing professional development to high school art teachers in a way that is meaningful to their creative goals for their students.

Program Details

As school budgets continue to shrink and arts classrooms continue to dwindle or evaporate all together, Thea Foundation is on a mission to save the inspiration and creativity in schools across Arkansas. Arts Reconstruction is a program purposefully built to augment existing arts education programs or build them from the ground up. Through this program, high school arts teachers are offered the opportunity to engage in graduate level intensive studies and professional development that is relevant to their creative goals for their students. Their efforts are supported by capital investments from Thea Foundation to equip their classrooms with the equipment and materials necessary to introduce the new mediums. In past years, teachers have explored exciting media such as book binding, paper making, oil portrait and cyanotype printing.

Thanks to support from Windgate Foundation we have seen this program grow and thrive over the years. In 2022, we were honored to host the first Creative Collective, a show by Arts Reconstruction teachers and their students. We look forward to hosting the second annual show this April and May.

How to Participate in Arts Reconstruction

Are you eager to bring renewed energy to your senior level art classrooms? If so, participating in Arts Reconstruction might be a good fit for you and your students. For information please contact Nick Leopoulos at nick@theafoundation.org

The Creative Collective

Thanks to increased support from Windgate Foundation, "The Creative Collective" was born. This exhibit was hosted in Thea's Gallery in April and May of 2023 and featured the work of Arts Reconstruction teachers and their students. The show highlighted how both teachers and students responded to the innovative mediums introduced and the unique professional development experiences provided through Arts Reconstruction. A teacher's renewed artistic energy from expanding their own creative toolkit provided a powerful influence on their students. We can't wait to see what they do in 2024.

Support Access to Arts Education in Arkansas

Help us support creative learning for the 479,000 kindergarten-12th public school students and the 33,000 teachers in Arkansas. Thea Foundation provides the needed art supplies and resources to help equip as many classrooms as our budget permits.

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