An artful way of teaching in Nahant

NAHANT – Nahant resident and artist Heather Goodwin, who volunteers her time exposing children to art, has been featured in a recently published art book.The book “500 Kids Art Ideas” was written by Gavin Andrews, assistant director for family, student and teacher programs at Peabody Essex Museum, and was published in June. It features numerous arts-and-crafts projects for children and adults to do together. Three of the projects in the book were created by Goodwin, who said she is passionate about getting children involved with art.When she heard that Nahant Public Schools were cutting art and music classes out of the curriculum due to budget cuts, she saw an opportunity to make a difference in something she felt was an important cause.Goodwin began in 2011 by going into the public elementary schools and volunteering to teach art programs.”I started doing community art projects with Nahant around the time that Nahant lost art programs in its schools,” Goodwin said. “Luckily, it is back now.”During the summer she began giving children the opportunity to help build large-scale sculptures that were displayed by the town.”We created two large sculptures from driftwood,” she said. “The kids painted each piece of driftwood to look like fish, and then I put it on structures with netting and waves.”Her summer projects are mostly done at the recreation department’s park program, she said. She advertises through flyers and word of mouth and then spends about three days at the park where children can join in on the activities.”They put together a lot of the colorful parts, and then I spend about a week building the structure and putting it all together,” she said. “And then the town displays it for around six weeks.”Goodwin said around 30 children usually participate, many of whom she has worked with in previous years. Most of the children are between the ages of 3 and 12.”I worked with a lot of these kids when they were in preschool, and I’ve seen a lot of them really develop as artists,” she said. “I can see the ones who enjoy it year after year and want to come back.”The older they get, the more talented they become,” she said. “I’m actually watching these kids grow into little artists, and I’m actually influencing how they feel about art. It’s something that they want to do with me, and they get excited about,” she said.Since beginning this program, she and the children have created numerous pieces of art. The Nahant Sea Serpent Sculpture, a driftwood sculpture, and a bus that they painted for the Council on Aging were featured in Andrews’ book.”I’m most excited that the kids will be able to see this book and see their artwork featured,” she said. “I hope that it sends the kids a message that being creative is just a really important part of life.”For me, making and sharing art brings me so much joy, and it makes the world so much more beautiful,” she said. “I hope they see that you can take a little project and make it into something big, and then maybe other people will see these projects and they will want to create something beautiful, too.”