Art Rocks! Radio Teams with Art Girl Ann Berchtold to Create Artistic Opportunities for Children.

Artrepreneur exposes students to world of artistic inspiration.

(PRWEB) August 21, 2005 -- Ann Berchtold grew up surrounded by artistic family members. She dabbles in painting and mosaics herself, but she prefers to market other artists work rather than create her own.

Five years ago, she debuted her first on-line art gallery, San Diego Artist at sandiegoartist.com, that she designed to showcase the work of emerging artists. Each month, Berchtold selects one artist to introduce on her Web site and to her mailing list that now numbers 5,000 subscribers. She supplements this exposure with an artist interview on Art Rocks," an Internet radio program.

Berchtolds first Web site proved so successful that, three years ago, she started the San Diego Visual Arts Network, sdvisualarts.net, a site that functions as a directory of visually related art activities, events and resources for artists and art agents.

However, her interest in the arts extends far beyond her on-line galleries, resource Web sites and consultation practice. She also devotes ample time and energy to promoting artistic opportunities for children like her two sons, Shane, 7, and Julian, 4.

When Shane started at Del Mar Hills Academy of Arts and Sciences, Berchtold was instrumental in bringing the Inspire San Diego Art Kids program to his school, which offers a dedicated arts curriculum. The Inspire Program introduces local artists into the classroom, who describe to the students how the old master artists inspired their own art. Guest artists then lead the children in a demonstration of that art style.

Berchtold described artist Chris Forders lively presentation for the students: Forder chose Jackson Pollock as his artistic inspiration and created a motorized robot that he calls an I-Bot. It was a tripod using a paintbrush or a Sharpie pen that gyrates on a canvas. So after Forder masked off the white space of the painting, he let the I-Bot do the rest."

Berchtold said that the kids were so enthusiastic about using the I-Bot to paint with that Forder built an I-Bot for each of the 30 students, so they, too, could paint in Pollocks style.

This year, Berchtold designed the San Diego Kidz Web site, sandiegoartkidz.com, to present childrens art opportunities. This site is geared toward helping parents with children who are art enthusiasts and serves as a resource for them to locate San Diego art resources and projects for their children.

My goal is to create artistic opportunities for children," said Berchtold, because it makes the whole school process more engaging and fun to open up doors for kids who may not be touched by subjects like math and science."

She views art as a core foundation for any childs education. Its my mission to see that there are as many creative opportunities for kids as possible."

To demonstrate her devotion to that mission, Berchtold joined the effort to save the San Diego Childrens Museum in downtown San Diego after she learned it was threatened for financial reasons.

According to Berchtold, when the museum opened across from San Diegos Convention Center many years ago, it was initially very successful. But, because the museum was housed in an old building with architectural problems, including asbestos, it was forced to close its doors two years ago.

While museum supporters have worked hard raising funds for a new building, they still lack sufficient funds. When the city of San Diego was planning to take the property away to give to another non-profit agency, Berchtold got involved. Ever since then, shes been working to raise funding and public awareness about the museums programs.

As a strong advocate for the museum, she is enthusiastic about the many creative activities that the interactive a museum had offered children.

They had a huge truck that kids loved to paint on," she said, and a recycling center where people could use the recycled material, including paper, to create art projects. They had a huge selection of costumes where children could dress up and interact, and they also brought in visiting artists do demonstrations for the children."

As a 15-year Del Mar resident, Berchtold said that she is inspired by the citys culturally rich artistic community, which she finds more of a grassroots effort than San Franciscos gallery-oriented artist community.

The Childrens Museum still needs to raise $5 million more for their new building. Contributors can learn how to help by visiting sdchidlrensmuseum.org or by picking up virtual tour information available at Del Mar Library and the Carmel Valley Library.

Berchtold, who is the arts coordinator at Del Mar Hills Academy for Arts and Sciences, hopes to eventually piggyback the Childrens Museum projects with the academys programs.

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