Recognizing the importance of writing and art as a foundation for learning and nurturing thought, in 2001 the Espy Foundation launched an exciting new education and outreach program, developed in collaboration with local educators, for support of the humanities and the arts on the Long Beach Peninsula. The Espy Foundation believes it can provide resources to students that will nurture creative thinking and vigorous approaches to their studies. In addition to donating books and funds to school programs, Espy provides scholarships to arts conferences for students, hosts student writing contests, and sponsors art and writing workshops.  Recent workshops have been led by painter Alfredo Arreguin, poet Tess Gallagher (Dear Ghosts), and writer Charles Cross (Heavier Than Heaven, A Biography of Kurt Cobain and Room Full of Mirrors, A Biography of Jimi Hendrix). 

In 2007, the Espy Foundation was awarded a Washington State Arts Commission grant to fund our arts education program for the 2007-2008 school year.  The grant enabled Espy to bring creative writing instructor Polly Buckingham and visual artist Marita Dingus to the peninsula throughout the school year to conduct workshops for high school students with the theme of “personal narrative.”  In May 2008, Espy brought together all students who have participated in the workshops, as well as teachers and community members for an exhibit and book launch party.  Students had the opportunity to share their work with the public and reinforce the message that the community honors and supports creativity.

Espy Awards and Scholarships

2008 Environmental Essay Writing Contest

Three local high school students have won cash prizes for their essays written on the topic of the environment.  First place goes to Michael Veland with his personal and reflective essay titled Timmens Hill Timber.  Second place is awarded to Karl Oman and Nathan Moore takes third place with his essay on spartina grasses in  Willapa Bay.  The three winners read from their essays at the Columbia Land Trust/Espy gathering on Art and the Environment in Oysterville on June 21 at 1pm.  Link below to see a movie of Michael in Timmons Hill Timber created by local journalist Damien Mulinex.  We look forward to hearing more from these talented young writers.

Centrum High School Summer Arts Intensives

June 2008

For the second year running, Espy provided scholarships for local high school students to attend Centrum Summer Arts Intensives in Port Townsend. Three Ilwaco High students were selected by their teachers to attend one of four weeklong art or writing workshops. The Espy Foundation provides two $365 scholarships to cover tuition, room and board, as well as $100 stipends for travel and other expenses. Centrum provides one additional full scholarship.   All three students chose to attend visual arts workshops with artists Amy Johnson and Jeffry Mitchell.  The students were guided in creating two-dimensional images and three-dimensional objects, and developed a fluency and ease in moving from one to the other. They made rubber molds to cast found objects out of plaster, paper and rubber and learned different ways to install, or display the work through collaboration, says Johnson. At Centrum, students are challenged to think in ways that stretch their idea of what art is, who needs to see it and where art can exist.

Eleventh grader David Lincoln is inspired by the weird and unique, and wishes to use his experience at Centrum to gather his thoughts and styles into something distinctly David. Fifteen year old Alyssa Jean Mellino is open to every art experience. She is inspired by Shawn Allen and Paula Rice.  Alyssa began sculpting when she was 10, first with femo and now with ceramic clay. Senior Stephen Shaw is a multi-talented artist.  He enjoys sculpting, pencil, charcoal, pastels and acrylic painting. He is attracted to unusual art forms, which inspire his own work.

Centrum has gathered young artists and teachers together at Fort Worden for more than three decades. To experience Centrum is to live and work with great artists and a community of peers who share passion, curiosity, and willingness to take risks. The line blurs between work and play; at Centrum there is an intensity of experience and depth in community not possible in everyday life.

2007-2008 Espy Arts Education Project

The Espy Foundation's core strategy for the Arts & Humanities program is to bring writers and artists to the peninsula schools.  The first phase of this program is to focus on high school students at Ilwaco High School, Tlohon-nipts Alternative School, and the local home-schooling community.  The Espy Foundation collaborated with teachers and parents to develop our program. 

Espy invited writer Polly Buckingham and visual artist Marita Dingus to visit the Peninsula several times throughout the 2007-2008 school year to lead students in personal narrative-themed writing and art workshops, which culminated in a final art show/book launch party in May 2008.  Students had the opportunity to share their work with the public and reinforce the message that the community honors and supports creativity.

The arts and humanities program is intended to develop into an ongoing part of the students art education and to set the groundwork for expanded programs.  Our goals are to maximize available resources, develop community involvement, and to help strengthen Peninsula students' view of the role of art and creativity in daily life.

This program was supported, in part, by a grant from the Washington State Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.  Locally, the Ocean Beach Education Foundation and the Peninsula Rotary Club have also provided generous contributions to help fund this project.

Student images of self on display at Long Beach Kite Museum May 2008

February 2007:  Student Scholarships to Centrum

In February, the Espy Foundation partnered with Centrum in Port Townsend to send four students to Centrum's High School Arts Master Classes.  Full scholarships and travel stipends were provided through a combined effort between Espy and Centrum.

Each student participated in one of several available arts and writing workshops.  One student elected to participate in the "Performance Poetry" course, two students took "Telling Your Story," a writing mechanics workshop, and the fourth student selected "Slash, Burn, and Rip," focusing on alternative methods of creative expression through visual arts.

The program lasted for five days and culminated in an event to honor the creative work each student produced during their time at Centrum.  One of the students later related, "The workshop changed my life.  I'm learning to put my feelings into poems, and that's helped me a lot."

January 2007:  Creative Writing Workshop

Sibyl Kempson, an Espy writer in residence from New York, volunteered to spend two days of her January 2007 residency conducting creative writing workshops at Ilwaco High School and Tlohon-nipts Alternative School.  A playwright, Sibyl emphasized the importance of being able to turn off self-editing when writing creatively and to explore thoughts with an open, playful mind. 

Sibyl presented a non-traditional passage of prose and explained:  "It's not put together the way we're used to things being done, but that doesn't mean it's not communicating anything."  She then led extended free-writing sessions and a discussion of work produced, focusing on the point in each student's work where creative, impulsive writing took over.  Editing, Sibyl explained, is an important final stage of creative writing--absolutely not an initial stage.

Sibyl connected her ideas about finding a true creative voice by letting go of self-restrictions to a similar process in visual art:  "If I'm going to draw his nose, I'm going to have to forget that I'm drawing a nose.  I'm going to have to stop judging and just draw."  Sibyl challenged the students to stop judging themselves and just write.

The students in all workshops were delighted at Sibyl's enthusiastic perspective and mind-broadening exercises.  The Espy Foundation is deeply grateful to Sibyl Kempson for volunteering her time to conduct these workshops at local schools.  Her work has far-reaching consequences for many lives.

October 2006:  Tess Gallagher & Alfredo Arreguin

Poet Tess Gallagher and painter Alfredo Arreguin came to the Peninsula to present a combined slideshow and poetry reading that told the story of their lifelong collaboration together with the late writer Raymond Carver.  They made this presentation on October 6th to several classes at Ilwaco High School and on October 7th at a public event in Oysterville.  Tess and Alfredo reached out to the high school students with story after story about what being a normal person who is also an artist or a writer really means.  They encouraged the students to visualize these creative possibilities for their own lives.  The public audience at the Oysterville event was visibly (and audibly) moved by Tess' poems and Alfredo's paintings, and by their vivid stories describing the joys and struggles of lives devoted to art.  The Espy Foundation is so grateful to Tess and Alfredo for honoring us with their visit and for sharing their stories with our community.  This project was funded in part by a grant from PONCHO.

(Photo by October 2006 Espy resident Mary Stieglitz)

Above, Tess Gallagher and Alfredo Arreguin in Oysterville Schoolhouse