PAINTS (Professional Artists in the Schools) is a program that helps schools throughout Nova Scotia to bring professional artists into their classrooms. Artists are members of both Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS) and the Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council (NSDCC).
PAINTS artists are paid $40 per project hour.The school contributes $20/hour, and PAINTS provides $20/hour. We also provide some support for supplies and travel expenses for artists. The program can support up to 24 hours per shool year at an individual school. That can be as one project or a few!
The purpose of the PAINTS program is to put professional artists in schools to work with students, and to share as much as possible their own art practice. More on PAINTS history and Objectives can be found here.
PAINTS is a program of VANS and is made possible through the support of The Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage & The Nova Scotia Department of Education.
Here on our website you'll find all the information you need to get involved. So take a look around, and call or write with any questions.
PAINTS Program Objectives
- To bring Nova Scotia's professional visual artists and their work to the attention of students, teachers and administrators in the province's schools.
- To provide opportunities for students to expand and explore their potential. Creativity, problem solving, risk taking, communication, self discipline, critical thinking, self expression, aesthetic expression and art appreciation may all be involved in the work.
- To involve students and teachers in creative processes.
- To encourage students, teachers and parents to involve themselves in art as participants and as audience.
- To provide role models for students who want to pursue visual art as their work, their vocation.
In 1993, Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS) took over the administration of the Visiting Artist Program, previously run through Cultural Affairs of the then NS Department of Education & Culture. It soon evolved to become PAINTS (Professional Artists in the Schools).
The program ran each school year until 2002. In that time, PAINTS supported more than one thousand of artist hours in the schools, creating permanent art works, inspiring students and teachers, forging connections between artists and school communities and broadening the appreciation of professional art and artists in the province. In 2002, due to a lack of staff and funding resources VANS had to put the PAINTS program on hiatus.
In the spring of 2006, the NS Department of Education committed funds to all of the provincial artists in the schools programs and asked VANS to consider revitalizing the PAINTS program. The NS Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage also offered their support to the program and the possibility of bringing back the PAINTS program became a reality. The following October a co-ordinator was hired and the program was re-introduced to NS schools.
So here we are.
Projects are happening from one end of the province to the other with students in all grade levels and artists form every imaginable descipline.
Maybe at your school next!