By Donna Apidone

Heart is the basis of art. Young people may feel an urge to create, but they count on parents and teachers to paint a path to success. To some adults, that means respecting and encouraging creativity. To others, it means raising money to augment school arts programs.

Maceo Montoya is an author, artist and educator who grew up in a family that promoted artistic expression. His father, Malaquias, and his uncle, Jose, played integral roles in the Chicano Art Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

“Most of my art training happened at home,” Montoya said. “My parents always emphasized that creating art wasn’t just about making a painting or a sculpture, it was something that you did in every aspect of your life.”

As public school districts in California attempt to expand their arts programs through Proposition 28 funding, parents continue to be a core source of empowerment for their artistic children.

Prop 28, which passed in 2022 and took effect during the last school year, injects as much as $1 billion per year into schools statewide. Although the funds are used differently from one district to another, all monies are intended for use in arts education. But the Prop 28 allotment doesn’t cover all the expenses of a strong arts program. That’s where parents come in.

Mollie Morrison, a visual arts teacher at McClatchy High School in Sacramento, pointed out the high costs of arts training. “Sculpture and ceramic arts can be expensive,” she said. Theater productions also add up. “Now you’re talking sets and props.”

Morrison knows firsthand about parental support for arts programs. “I was one of those parents trying to get my daughter into a school that had arts, which were few and far between,” she says. 

After actively volunteering in the school setting as a mom, Morrison earned her teaching credential. Now in her 11th year teaching at McClatchy, she also coordinates the Visual and Performing Arts Program (VAPA), which includes theater, music and dance, and has about 400 students in its ranks.

Booster funds are a crucial complement to Prop 28 and other funding. They allow teachers to take their programs the extra mile. “We can make it truly magical,” Morrison said.

McClatchy Principal Andrea Egan added that the magic is rooted in “the extra layer of excitement and engagement from both teachers and parents.”

At McClatchy, the booster group includes parent volunteers and student representatives from the VAPA disciplines. Erin Vickers-Huff is in her sixth year with the McClatchy boosters and serves as treasurer. Since taking on management of its own funding, McClatchy has been more efficient with spending booster contributions, which go to classroom and production needs. 

With funds raised by the booster groups, theater students at McClatchy have attended live performances in Sacramento and San Francisco. Visual arts students have visited museums in Sacramento Valley and the Bay Area. Field trips may seem like a luxury, but Vickers-Huff said they offer an important lesson in the business of arts management.

“These trips provide the students with real-life examples of art as a career, to see art in action and to connect to the possibility of working in the field of the arts which is a big part of the VAPA mission,” Vickers-Huff said.

And it’s not only parents and guardians who are tasked with fundraising for VAPA. Students share the work of fundraising with adults, she said.

“We have had students present ideas for creating public art, student services, special equipment needs,” Vickers-Huff said. “Watching them work together, problem solve, and compromise all while producing incredible works of art and productions has been a very rewarding and enlightening experience.”

McClatchy’s VAPA program is an “open enrollment opportunity,” Egan explained. “It’s open to any kids in the city to apply.”

In many of California’s public elementary schools, there is not sufficient funding for designated arts teachers. Foundational art lessons are minimal, but art is evident in the materials used to teach history, mathematics and science. Jacqueline White, an assistant superintendent with the Sacramento County Office of Education, said the current focus is on integrating art into other subjects. Young students may learn planetary rotation by dancing in circles around a teacher who represents the sun. Geometric shapes and basic physics can fit into a lesson in ancient architecture like Egyptian pyramids.

“There is value in art for art’s sake, but the process of making art is all problem solving, from beginning to end,” White said.

A problem administrators would like to creatively solve is how to teach the arts without designated teachers. “Yes, we need to add arts teachers, but how do we also equip that kindergarten through sixth grade teacher to integrate the arts and arts instruction into their classroom every day?”

Three artists’ perspectives 

Artists, parents and educators see the arts as a legacy, with benefits for current and future generations.

Montoya’s formative years, surrounded by art, were the ultimate experience of art integrated into everyday life.

“My father built our furniture, my mother made the plates we ate off of, and everywhere you turned in our home was a beautiful object placed with intentionality and care. They wanted to surround us with beauty as well as a deep sense of our history and culture.”

Montoya values the role of art in all aspects of life, and he points to imagination to enrich his students’ experiences.

“We forget how fundamental our imaginations are to thrive in the world. Many of my university students get frustrated and easily discouraged when an assignment doesn’t have set guidelines, clear expectations, and a rubric to guide them. We need our imaginations to problem solve, to visualize, to be resourceful, and maybe most importantly, to trust that we have it within ourselves to figure something out,” Montoya said. “Children have no trouble tapping into their imaginations to build something out of nothing. Over time — and because of our educational system — we lose the ability to tap into that fundamental part of ourselves.”

Nida Akhtar’s art is a direct result of her experience as a parent. She was inspired to paint after her fourth child died six days after birth. The activity of painting offered therapy she hadn’t anticipated.

“Because of her, I am doing this,” Akhtar said. “She’s with me whenever I am in my painting room.”

Akhtar’s first foray into art education consisted of online videos as she mourned. In the last few years, she has taken classes at Sacramento State while pursuing a degree in business. She exhibits at the Atrium in Old Sacramento.

Now Akhtar’s youngest child has expressed an interest in painting, and with a 9-year-old the lessons are bigger than the canvas.

“Art gives them connection to themselves. I tell her, ‘You need to be patient. You can’t be mad at the paint,’” Akhtar said. “The times that we’re in — there’s so much noise outside. Whenever we bring ourselves into our hearts, that is the only way to bring peace.”

Marie “Rie” Thomas is a teaching assistant at a Montessori school in Elk Grove. As a graphic designer who trained at the Art Institute of California San Francisco, who also exhibits her art at galleries in the region, she has a lot to offer her middle grade students.

“Art opens their minds a little more to see things in different views,” Thomas said. “It also builds up self-esteem for kids.”

She said she is fortunate to work with a school with resources. Montessori has “a really great parent community that donates supplies,” Thomas said. She often augments the donated supplies with her own items: “Teachers are always being creative.”

Thomas remembers the creative environment of her youth. She credits her grandfather, who bought her first sketch book, and her middle school teacher who made the connection between books, art and imagination.

She said there is documentation of her earliest attempt at art. As a small child, she scribbled with a pen in the baby book her family treasured. Next to her work, her mother wrote “Marie’s first drawing.”

McClatchy High Principal Egan has her own way of painting a path for students who love the arts: “I start with ‘yes’ and figure out a way to get it done.”

This story was funded by the City of Sacramento’s Arts and Creative Economy Journalism Grant to Solving Sacramento. Following our journalism code of ethics and protocols, the city had no editorial influence over this story and no city official reviewed this story before it was published. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review, Sacramento Observer and Univision 19. Sign up for our “Sac Art Pulse” newsletter here.