Turchin Center at ASU

In order to implement its educational program, The Turchin Center, at Appalachian State University, founded The Community Art School. The mission of the school is to make the visual arts more accessible to the greater Boone community by providing opportunities to experience the visual arts in a dynamic, meaningful and personal way. The Community Art School conducts visual arts workshops for pre-kindergarten students through grade 12, as well as adults, at-risk youth and those with disabilities.

The purpose of this program is twofold: to enrich the lives of the participants by providing experiences that are both educational and therapeutic, and to build an audience that recognizes the importance of the arts in experiencing, interpreting, understanding, recording and shaping culture.

The Clabough Foundation provided funding for an initial program at the Turchin Center’s Community Art School. “It is so important to have a local foundation that understands the diverse needs of a community and makes such an effort to support programs which make the arts available to the greater Appalachian community,” said Hank Foreman, Curator and Director of the Turchin Center at ASU.