S12 E24 - Delaware State of the Arts - Center for the Creative Arts

Ever wondered how art can be harnessed as a transformative power in communities? Well, you'll find answers in our enlightening conversation with Melissa Pelerchio and Jay from the Center for Creative Arts in Yorkland, Delaware. They reveal the rich tapestry of their artistic space, filled with art classes, summer camp programs, a music festival, art galleries, an outdoor market, and open mic nights. We also unravel the center's community outreach efforts and their unique initiatives aimed at making art accessible and relevant to everyone in the community.

Moving beyond the canvas, Melissa presents a colorful perspective on her work with art therapy - a delicate blend of science and art aimed at helping individuals navigate mental health challenges. As she explains her approach to assist clients in managing anxiety and depression, you'll be intrigued by the power of art in fostering emotional awareness and creative expression. We also touch on the invaluable support of the Delaware Division of the Arts in raising public awareness of the arts and supporting arts programming. This conversation is a testament to the role of art in building vibrant, inclusive communities. So, sit back and let us take you on a journey through the transformative world of art and therapy.

The Delaware Division of the Arts, a branch of the Delaware Department of State, is committed to supporting the arts and cultivating creativity to enhance the quality of life in Delaware. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. Learn more at Arts.Delaware.Gov.

Delaware State of the Arts is a weekly podcast that presents interviews with arts organizations and leaders who contribute to the cultural vibrancy of communities throughout Delaware. Delaware State of the Arts is provided as a service of the Division of the Arts, in partnership with NEWSRADIO 1450 WILM and 1410 WDOV.

Transcript

Terrance: 0:20

For Delaware State of the Arts. My name is Terrence Van and I am joined today by two awesome folks. Here I have Melissa Pelerchio and Jay from the Center of Creative Arts in Yorkland, delaware. We're going to be talking about some awesome things, some programs, the wonderful things happening in the center. Would you like to introduce yourselves and kind of give a little intro back story on how we got here today?

Melissa: 0:50

Sure, so I'm Melissa Pelerchio. I'm the executive director and have been at the center since June of 2019. My background actually is in the performing arts, so I have a BFA in acting and an MFA from Yale School of Drama and Theater Management, and I actually just recently finished my MS in community and trauma counseling with an art therapy concentration. So lots of education, and education is actually what drew me back to the center for the creative arts. I'd been running professional live theaters for quite some time and I just missed that educational component, and so I was looking for a new job and this one came up, and I'm so grateful to have been here since June of 2019.

Terrance: 1:37

Wow, that is awesome.

Jay: 1:40

I'm Jay. I am the program director here. I have my bachelor's of fine arts in studio art from Westchester University of Pennsylvania. I love education so much so I went and got more at PAPA, pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. I got my MFA and then I started volunteering here and fell in love with this place and a position opened up and started here about April 2019, just about a month or two before Melissa and then we started working together and it was pretty awesome there.

Terrance: 2:22

That sounds awesome and let me say for our listeners, they can't see but great glasses, great glasses.

Delaware Division of the Arts: 2:29

I'm loving the frames.

Terrance: 2:32

I'm loving the frames, but thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. That's awesome to hear and you know this center. It feels there's a great energy. I can already feel some great energy coming from the center and there's a lot of classes and programs and all different kinds of things happening. You know, just to dive in, if we could do kind of a review of some of the programs that happened maybe last season and kind of get into where we're going and what's currently happening.

Melissa: 3:02

Absolutely so. The Center for the Creative Arts is over 40 years old, so we've been in Yorkland, actually in an old school building. We're in the old Yorkland school, so it was an elementary school, so there's a history of education and gathering in this building before we even took it over. But so every year we have four semesters of classes and workshops for what I like to call kids of all ages. So we have music, art, dance and drama and that goes from young people all the way up through adults.

Melissa: 3:36

Year round in our four semesters we have an intensely popular and joyful and creative summer camp program that runs between 10 and 11 weeks. We actually expanded this year, we're 11 weeks this year and we invite young people ages five to 14 to come on down and learn about the arts and make friends and have a great time with us through the summertime. In addition to those kind of core programs of our educational piece, we have many events throughout the year. So in September we typically do a music festival that's called Hot Jam, and we also have several art galleries opening during the year, as well as our annual artists and show in our outdoor market. So we are a very busy year round community arts center that provides a lot of different opportunities for artists, starting all the way at amateurs through professionals.

Terrance: 4:39

Incredible, incredible. It sounds just so engaging and I feel the creativity and I'm sure a lot of artists of all kinds have benefited from music and all different sorts of disciplines, so that's fabulous and some of the live shows and the programs. I'm sure there's a lot of local artists that participate and have, you know, displayed their work or gotten their music out there. How has that been for the community?

Melissa: 5:10

So it's the best for us when we're able to connect local artists whether they be musicians, visual artists, dancers with our community, and so our outdoor outdoor market allows their and our artists and show allows artists to sell their goods. Our open mic night is actually a free event that we host every third Thursday, which allows musicians, poets, jugglers, anybody who'd like to perform, can come out for free and perform for a crowd who enjoy. It's a completely free event, All ages, All ages. Yeah, we had the Hookas in School of Rock actually come in I guess not last, not this month, but last month and they rocked it and we had a ton of new families in the center.

Melissa: 5:56

And we do a lot of work to try and invite our community to our campus. But we also are really active out in the community. So we are frequently at a lot of the New Castle County outdoor fairs like sleep under the stars or the ice cream festival. We are in schools currently. So we have school residencies at a few different schools in Wilmington and in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. So we do what we can to really get out in the community, so not just welcome people to our campus but to take art to people out in the community.

Terrance: 6:32

And that's awesome to hear. It sounds like, you know, it can happen outside of just one space. You know, and that's great to hear that there's all these different things happening and for some of the programs, what are some of the programs that you offer? Are there some that are, you know? Do you have a popular program that folks you know really love? You know, how has it been with the different programs, because I'm sure they're all very different and I'm sure you get different participants.

Melissa: 7:06

We do. Yeah, there's some crossover between programs. We have a very popular ceramics department here in our visual arts section. Summer camp, like I said, is hugely popular, especially with the families of school-aged children. Open mic night has been growing in its popularity, not just with the musicians who want to perform but with our audiences. We've seen those grow over the last few months. That was one of our last programs that kind of came back in person after the pandemic and so we've only really been running that since, I think, october, and we have an Irish dance program here as well. They're in residency with us and so, yeah, it's just depends. It like really depends on what you're interested in, but we have a little something for everyone.

Terrance: 7:59

It sounds like it. I would, actually I would love to take an Irish dancing class. You know, I'm sure it's great, great core work.

Melissa: 8:07

Good cardio.

Terrance: 8:08

Absolutely, absolutely. So interesting to hear. And now Yorkland is an interesting area itself. I'm sure it has a lot of history that goes back in, and you said the center has been there for 40 years. So I'm sure there's a lot of history within the center itself. Are you from the Yorkland area? You know kind of describe the community.

Melissa: 8:31

Sure, I'm actually not from this area, but I've adopted it as home. It's just so beautiful. We are so lucky in Yorkland that there's a state park, like a stone's throw away from the center. We have another nonprofit up the road from us. It's a Marshall Steam Car Museum and the Friends at Auburn Heights, and so there's like that little bit of history. Tom Marshall and had a huge collection of steam cars and they have a museum up there. It's super cool and this area is actually undergoing a bit of a renaissance right now. There's a lot of development in the works to bring some more residential people to the area and we're just really excited about the possibilities for Yorkland right now because we have this incredible state park, awesome nonprofits in the area and all this residential going on. So we're really excited about the way that Yorkland's been growing.

Terrance: 9:29

It is absolutely beautiful Yorkeland. You know it's very lush. I'm a nature guy myself, so you know I love hiking and stuff like that. So you know Yorkeland is very beautiful and that's awesome to hear, though that it is going towards, you know, growing and it sounds like a creative. You know transformation, which here we're at the center. We're at the center of the. You know creative art, so that's fabulous to hear. I want to take a minute to remind our listeners that you are tuned into News Radio 1450, wilm and 1410, wdov for Delaware State of the Arts. Okay, so you were kind of going over that you started an arts therapy practice, and how does that work and what does it entail? Could you kind of share a little bit more about that?

Melissa: 10:27

Absolutely. You know, art therapy is therapeutic art making, and so sometimes that's just the process of making art can be therapeutic. And sometimes there are specific interventions that we can do to target certain mental health conditions, whether that be anxiety, stress, depression, self-esteem. So there's a lot of different avenues. Social emotional learning is a big one for young people, so helping them figure out through the art making process how they can be great friends or learn how to be in relation with other kids, learn to regulate their own emotions or learn about emotional vocabulary, we can do that with art.

Terrance: 11:13

And have you seen like a result, or are you tracking certain progress when it comes to using this as a tool, or is it more of a kind of an expressive exercise for folks? How deep does it go? As far as kind of just like on the background? Is it scientific or is it strictly from like a creative standpoint?

Melissa: 11:41

It is a science and also an art. So we have ways to measure progress, especially with things like depression and anxieties, or certain assessments that are available that we're able to do before we start, maybe a group or an individual session, and then we're able to track that progress over time, and some of that progress we track through those qualitative methods. So the survey is to figure out kind of where were our symptoms before and where they after. We've participated, and some of it is sorry, that's quantitative, and then some of it is qualitative, right, so some of it is just feedback, it's like. So how does the client report their feeling now? Are they saying they're feeling lighter? Are they able to be in social situations with less distress? Maybe if you were working on social anxiety?

Melissa: 12:33

So it is a science. My degree is actually a master's of science, so my counseling degree. So it is science. We like to use evidence-based methods, and that exists for art therapy. But the thing about the arts is that there really truly are sometimes benefits that are harder to quantify, and that's where processing verbal processing of artworks that we make together, comes in handy.

Terrance: 13:05

Wow, wow. That's awesome because I know that a wide range of folks, age-wise, from all around, can benefit from this, because creativity is a universal language and just to kind of kind of dive in just a little bit more. But now, is this starting with kids, or is there? Is there an age range that you are looking to target?

Terrance: 13:33

or is this, you know? Can seniors join in on this? Is this something that you know? I mean, I'm sure it's. It's kind of like early on, it seems, but is this something that is for all ages?

Melissa: 13:46

Yes, so we have not launched any of these programs yet. We do plan to launch some in the fall and we are there's a kind of a long term plan to potentially provide individual services to people of all ages. So, for instance, I'm an art therapist and I have clients as young as five years old but my oldest client is 65. So and I've done a wide range of work and it's really individualized to that person. So what they need, we work on, we make goals together and then we work on what they need for their emotional health through art.

Terrance: 14:20

Wow, wow. You know that is seems like the world needs more of that right now, and you know, I know that. I know that goes a long way with folks just to be able to sit with you and creative. You know it's a way to work through a lot of things, you know. So that's, that's really awesome. Are you yourself, are you a visual artist, or do you take any of these classes, or would you take any of the classes at the center?

Melissa: 14:48

Yes, yes, actually at the center, is what kind of reawakened all of my visual artist desires, I guess I just I started, well, since I was here like I would sit in on classes or I would be, you know, having to make an example, to work with kids, and I just noticed that I really missed it. I missed part of the reason why I love theater arts. One is because we make art together, so we collaborate or together we make our art. But I also love theater because it's really somatic. Right, you have to use your whole body, your voice, everything, and so I forgot how much I enjoy certain visual art making process because you have to, you know, you use your body to be able to do that, and so I've actually, since I started working here, I've kind of gotten back into my visual arts passion.

Melissa: 15:39

I did not. My mother actually reminded me the other day. She's like, oh, you used to draw all the time and you're always making stuff, and so, yeah, I know, but so I do. Paper collage is one of my main media that I use. I've been kind of dabbling in mosaics and some other, some other like paper based projects and things like that. But yeah, it's wonderful to be the first in who gets to come to work here every day because I can hop into a class. My next, my next goal is to get into a ceramics class with our one of our instructors. That's my goal because I want to know more about that A lot of therapeutic benefits of being able to do pottery, and so I'm really excited to learn more about that.

Terrance: 16:26

Yeah, Gosh, I might have to join on that. You know, I'm actually I'm potting. I'm repotting like four plants right now and it's man, it's the best, but it's so tough and I would love to have my own pots. You know, it's just like, hey, that's, that's an awesome thing, so that's so cool that you get to really, you know, get a wide range of, you know different arts, you know backgrounds, to to have some fun with and play with. So lucky you, that's not.

Terrance: 17:01

That sounds like a lot of fun, like a lot of fun Before we bring it all home and close out. Is there anything you would like to share about in the future coming up for the rest of 2023, 2024? Yeah, please share.

Melissa: 17:21

We have an incredible program that we are so very excited about.

Melissa: 17:26

It's gonna be a pretty big program for us with different pieces, but we've started an initiative called Arts for All here at the Center for the Creative Arts.

Melissa: 17:34

So our mission is to inspire, transform and enrich the lives of people of all ages and abilities through the arts, and that's something that through the years the Center has done more or less of, and Jay and I are really excited to announce that we're gonna be doing programs specifically for the deaf and hard of hearing communities, so we plan on offering classes in American Sign Language with deaf teaching artists.

Melissa: 18:01

We plan on potentially starting art therapy groups here now with my education, so we're gonna be putting a bunch of different types of art therapy out into the space, into the community. We have some connections with the local veterans groups, so we're looking to start to work with military veterans who've been affected by their time in active duty, and so we're just so excited about our opportunity to truly start to create programs that are serving as many people as possible in and around our community and as many people who are neurodiverse, who have physical disabilities, you name it. We're excited to make sure that everyone is provided with an opportunity to create, because we believe it is paramount to people's mental health, physical health, overall wellbeing. We believe the arts are that important and we wanna make sure that everyone has an opportunity to experience them.

Terrance: 18:59

Oh, that is fabulous. I mean, it's amazing to hear as much access to creativity the world. That's what we need in the world, in my opinion, and that is just that's remarkable to hear that there are things speaking to groups that maybe don't get to have some as much focus in the creative arts. So that's really inspirational to hear and I'm so excited. I have to stop by, I have to get in there, I have to get in a class. No, I need to brush up on some things. So it would be great to or even try something different. So it's wonderful that there are a wide range of programs and fun activities at the center of the creative arts and I'm absolutely so grateful for your time today. This has been great and I think the listeners are gonna learn a lot. Hopefully we get even more folks banging the doors down trying to get into a program and into a live show. So, melissa and Jay, thank you and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Melissa: 20:09

Thank you, yeah, thank you, yeah. If people wanna learn more about us, our website is CCArtsorg. We are just so grateful to have the opportunity to speak with you today. Thank you so much and I'll see you guys next time.

Delaware Division of the Arts: 21:21

Thanks advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council. The division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. To find out more about the division, visit artsdellawaregov. Upbeat music playing.