Arts for Cambodian Children & Teens at Champey

Several  of our  senior art students are  transforming the walls of the Painting & Drawing classroom at Champey Academy. 

The problem ...

Our students sit on the floor during classes. As you can  imagine, the white walls of our Champey class rooms receive considerable wear as students place their hands on the walls as they get up from the floor  or lean against  the walls during breaks from their daily  classes.  Adding to the wear and tear are backpacks and parcels placed against the walls. The once white walls of the classroom have, over the past 4 years, become worn and dingy.

Our first  thought was just to repaint the white walls. As we thought more about it,  we decided to paint the walls a darker red color -which we call  " Champey red"-  about half way up the wall, the idea being that  the dark color would hide a lot of normal wear and tear. 

An idea takes shape ...

Next came the idea to add   "Kbach", an interpretive ancient  Cambodian design which comes from patterns and shapes in nature and  which from a distance sometimes  resembles paisley.  Dong Saree, our traditional painting teacher at Champey, readily agreed to take on  the project. Besides working at Champey, Dong Saree is also a professor  at the Royal University of Fine Arts  in Phnom Penh where for the  past 20 years, she has taught traditional Cambodian painting. Her background made her uniquely qualified to  supervise the project and work closely with our students as they prepared the walls and took on the complex work of transferring the design templates in preparation for  hand painting the Kbach.

The project ...

The project, which began in mid-November, is expected to be finished in the middle of January at an  estimated project  cost of $300, from which $100 will cover the costs of materials. We hope to use the remaining funds to reward our students for their hard work and commitment to this project. Although our students volunteered for this work, all of them come from very modest backgrounds and they would be thrilled to receive any sort of bonus for their work. We have tentatively  budgeted  into our project costs a modest bonus  for the six students involved in the project.  

Our artists ...

As we have often mentioned, our students come from a variety of backgrounds. For some time, ,Champey,  has had several young monks studying in the art program with the goal that one day they can perhaps help to preserve or restore some of the paintings in their temples.  The photos show  our team in action and gives you an idea of the  complexity of "just adding a bit of design" to walls .

The many benefits...

Your support for our art programs can provide unique opportunities like this  for our students to utilize their skills, learn project management  and team skills and create a sense of pride in accomplishment.

Stay tuned for more photos of our finished project in the first quarter of 2017.

We remain grateful to you all for your generous support.

Barbara & Mark Rosasco

Links:

• Kasumisou Foundation website