COMMITTED TO OUR COMMUNITY

By Sydney Ritter | Scottsdale Arts

Scottdale Arts Learning & Innovation exhibits “Visions ’23” to highlight the skills, inspirations and ideas exchanged between students and professional teaching artists over the course of the 2022–23 Visions program. The newest exhibition will remain on display through Aug. 6 inside Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) located in Old Town.

Visions is a yearlong invitational visual arts program that has been provided to Valley teens for 24 years, in collaboration with six Valley high schools. For the first time, the students participating in the Visions program will be showcasing their artwork inside SMoCA.

Brittany Arnold, community engagement manager for Scottsdale Arts Learning & Innovation, is excited that Visions will get the opportunity to exhibit in SMoCA’s Virginia Ullman Gallery and Smart Space.

“Visions students have really stepped up their game because of this opportunity,” Arnold said. “The program offers a safe space for creative young people to share parts of themselves and be received with open arms. The students’ art inevitably grows with them as they discover things about artists, the world and themselves, and it’s beautiful to be able to observe that transformation.”

The students who participate in the program attend monthly workshops conducted by professional artists, tour universities and connect with exhibitions offered by SMoCA. One of the artists the students worked with is Arizona-based creative Mary Meyer. She described her workshop as a way for the students to “connect with nature and find creative inspiration from the plants that surround us.”

“This is the third time I've worked with Visions, and each experience is truly unique and energizing,” Meyer