East Side Review - March 1, 1999
Getting the best kind of homework
Girls from the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood's Portage for Youth porgram, a neighborhood-based after-school enrichment center, play around outside the center the afternoon of Feb. 24. The Portage for Youth program has sponsored a photography program for the children two years in a row. The program covered the basics, and according to Portage for Youth director Raeann Ruth it worked to both keep the girls "off the street" and help them discover their own self-worth. The program is wrapping up this year with an exhibit at the Landmark Center, which will run from March 1 to April 15.
Portage for Youth's after-school photography program is planted firmly over the line separating education and self-awareness from outright fun
by Scott Nichols
The 11 girls in the Portage for Youth's after-school photography program have differing opinions about what they liked best about creating their own pictures.
Some liked the challenge of identifying and then framing an image through the camera lens. Others liked watching their image appear in the darkroom, sometimes as expected, sometimes not.
For Lia Thao, 13, the image that sticks in her memory is of getting down on her stomach on the sidewalk, and trying to make a "Kleenex box look like a house" through her camera lens.
For Kong Vang, 11, memories linger of the darkroom. Like many of the other girls, she noted that getting to see her pictures was certainly fun. But what she really liked was talking to friends in the dark, and spinning super fast through the darkroom's revolving access door.
Every day after school for the last six months, the girls living in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood have learned all about the art and science of photography, thanks to the guidance of a number of professional photographers, donated cameras and film, and oodles of adult patience.
Just take the word of photographer-mentor Laurie Schneider, who at first tried to tell rather than show the girls what the process was all about.
"I tried to explain what it means to take photographs, and then what it means to be in an exhibit, and none of; them got it. They were bored," said Schneider, working photographer responsible for coordinating the program. "It didn't make sense to them until they began to do it."
And once they started?
"Immediately, they were captivated," said Schneider, who has compiled the best of the girls' work into an exhibit opening tonight at the Ramsey County Historical Society in the Landmark Center downtown.
"Step into my world" features the writings and black-and-white photography of the Portage for Youth children as well as young women from New Voices, a program of The Circle newspaper, a monthly Native American publication based in Minneapolis (see sidebar for exhibit information).
For the second year in a row, Schneider found other photographers willing to practically donate their time to the cause of educating the girls, and each of them took one or two of the girls under their wing, showing them the ropes.
Although many of the girls are too young to articulate it, they learned about things like perspective, composition, and framing an image, as the mentors took them places such as the Como Park Conservatory, Rice Park, various galleries, and even the Minnesota Historical Society to look through the archives. (According to Schneider, the girls were especially interested in the Society's pictures of other children.)
Once they got their hands on cameras, the girls were transformed. "Very quickly I saw them change from little girls to working photographers, because it was their own product, their own piece of art they were making," said Schneider.
Taking pride in their work, and as a result, taking pride in themselves is one of the significant benefits of the photography program as well as the dozens of others coordinated through Portage for Youth, according to the program director Raeann Ruth.
Based out of Ruth's donated home on Fremont Avenue, the Portage for Youth program serves as an after- school enrichment program, "devoted strictly to girls" referred by area schools and word of mouth, said Ruth.
"Basically, it keeps them off the street and gives them a place to go," she said. At the cozy home on the tree- lined street, the girls can escape the problems of pregnancy, gangs, and drugs.
"This is one of the only places they can be kids," Ruth said. "Otherwise, they're trying to be cool."
Letting the girls relax is one of the significant benefits of the program. At the house, the girls can learn such things as piano playing, art, creative writing, gardening, health, soccer, and algebra.
Starting this evening, the girls also are going to learn what it's like to be the subject of an exhibit, as 1,000 invitations were mailed out for the opening.