The Effingham Public Library will host an exhibit starting Monday that was originally created by the Tarble Arts Center.

“Cultivating Creativity: 2012-13 Consolidated Communications Traveling Children’s Art Exhibit,” which was organized by the staff of the Tarble, is a collection of artwork from 43 area schools and will travel to 14 sites through Aug. 26, 2013, spending about two weeks at each site.

Tarble Curator of Education Kit Morice said the traveling exhibit began in 1995 and has run every year since.

“The artwork included is selected to represent each of the area schools, which participate in the annual Children’s Art Exhibition we hold in May in the Tarble’s Main Galleries,” Morice said. “The exhibit showcases the creative talents of K-12 students and advocates for the inclusion of an art program taught by a certified art specialist in every school.”

Morice said the pieces selected include a variety of media, including drawings, paintings, prints, scratchboard, mixed-media pieces, sculptures, ceramics and fibers.

She said the exhibit cites research for why public education needs art education.

“The arts can improve student performance and critical thinking skills, improve test scores in areas other than the arts,” Morice said. “It also provides students with skills necessary to perform well in school and beyond if they have been exposed to quality arts education in their school.”

She said once the pieces are selected, they still have to get the artists’ permission to put the artwork onto the eight panels that travel to the sites. The sites also have to be arranged.

“Once the selections are made, we send a loan form to the student artists’ families requesting permission to tour the pieces in the exhibit,” Morice said. “The host sites (mostly area banks and libraries) are sent an exhibit agreement verifying the dates that they will host the exhibit and the terms for hosting it.”

Morice said the next step is physically putting the exhibit together and publicize it. The exhibit is assembled with the help of graduate students.  

“There are generally around 40 works in the exhibit,” Morice said. “We also publish a catalogue that is sent to all of the artists, art teachers, school administrators and Board of Education members and have copies available for people to pick up at each site.”

Morice said the exhibit is unique for a variety of reasons such as how each piece is created and how they are displayed.

“Each piece included is a unique expression created by a child artist,” Morice said. “It is also unique in that it travels to sites in each of the  communities represented and may be viewed by thousands over the tour’s run; we estimate some 10,000 people view it each year.”

Amy Wywialowski can be reached at 581-2812 or alwywialowski@eiu.edu.