SMARTS Store to open in DeYor arts center

The store will feature work by local and national
artists and SMARTS
students.

YOUNGSTOWN — Students Motivated by the Arts, an arts education program, will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the grand opening of the SMARTS Store at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The opening is designed to coincide with the Steel Valley art teachers’ exhibition opening reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. that day in the SMARTS Center at 258 Federal Plaza West in the DeYor Performing Art Center’s Adler Art Academy. The store will be located in the center and will operate during SMARTS daily business and programming hours.

The store will help the agency fulfill its mission serving children in kindergarten through 12th grade and Youngstown State University students, said Becky Keck, SMARTS director.

It will feature a collection of artistic creations and interesting novelty items including one-of-a-kind and limited-edition works of art appropriate for a K-12 environment. Artwork will include paintings, cards and novelties, three-dimensional sculptures, handmade books, CDs and jewelry made by YSU students, local and national artists as well as students participating in SMARTS free quality-arts education classes.

All proceeds from the store will benefit future SMARTS public programming.

“It’s a way for us to make connections with folks we might not serve,” Keck said, adding that the store will be a permanent part of the SMARTS program.

SMARTS is sponsored by YSU’s College of Fine and Performing Arts and the Beeghly College of Education. It seeks to motivate students to succeed in all areas of life by teaching them the focus and discipline that creating art requires. Literacy is at the core of the SMARTS mission.

The original concept of the SMARTS Store began two years ago at the YSU Summer Festival of the Arts as a way to connect to the community. Through the generosity of Star Supply, individual donors, the William Swanston Foundation, the Ruth H. Beecher Foundation and the Walter E. & Caroline H. Watson Foundation, the agency is able to open the store, Keck said.

Mary Farragher of Poland, a YSU senior art major, led the design of the store, creating its aesthetic environment, inventory, signature design for packaging and logo. She has also helped to connect SMARTS to YSU student artists through her position with the store.

She served two years as president of YSU’s Student Art Association and led the group in the creation of numerous exhibitions across the Valley and activities including a trip to New York City. Along with her three years of experience at the McDonough Museum of Art, she is currently an intern with Dr. Lou Zona, executive director of the Butler Institute of American Art, and has been a visual arts teacher at SMARTS for four years.

Farragher said her work with the development of the SMARTS Store will be a learning experience for her ambition to own and operate an art gallery.