Anonymous donation expands ESSA capabilities
CD White – Word is, if you build it they will come. That’s exactly what happened after Eureka Springs School of the Arts built and launched its new heavy metal studio. Today, most of the iron and metalworking classes fill early on and students love working in the space.
Now, thanks to a sizeable donation from the same anonymous donors who funded the metal studio, ESSA’s cramped wood working classes will at last have room to create on a larger scale.
ESSA director, Peggy Kjelgaard, announced the donation last week, saying, “We here at ESSA are very excited to announce the next phase of our growth on campus. We are thrilled to be able to have more diverse wood workshops in the coming years.”
Although no date has been set for the groundbreaking, Kjelgaard’s best guess is that it will be sometime in the fall of this year. The 4,000 sq. ft. sister building to the iron studio will sport a large lathe room and a state of the art wood shop with an additional clean classroom nestled between the iron and wood studios.
Wood classes have already been a big draw on the campus – with the only drawback being lack of space for the number of interested students and the limited equipment that can be housed.
“The school’s dedicated wood instructors have continued to keep the program moving forward – Doug Stowe, Les Brandt and Steve Palmer among them,” Kjelgaard said. “With a new studio, we’ll be able to increase the quantity and diversity of wood workshops offered.”
New workshops could include furniture making, wood sculpture, wood turning and more.
Kjelgaard said Doug Stowe, an Arkansas Treasure woodworker, ESSA instructor and one of the school’s founders “will be the key to the design of our wood studio;” adding, “He’s the reason we have such a great wood program.”
Although the donors wish to remain anonymous, Kjelgaard was able to relate that their support came because they believe in the work ESSA is doing and have seen the progress being made across the entire program.
If the groundbreaking does happen in early autumn as hoped, the first workshop in the new wood studio will take place in summer, 2017.
For more information on the project, see www.essa-art.org or phone (479) 253-5384.
This is awesome news, go Peggy!