Visual & Performing Arts
The Fine Arts Program at HCYR
“The Arts program reinforces HCYR’s objective to find each child’s gifts – whether academic, athletic, vocational, or artistic – and help the child amplify them, combining growth and healing in the same process. We watch for those things a child does well, and for those interests that endure, working on healing whenever possible, and seeking conditions that spark motivation. It appears to us that motivation, learning, and healing are all aspects of the same positive life force.”
- Carol Priour, Director of Fine Arts
Even when the story is tragic, the painting, poem, or song can inspire and transform.
We learned early in our work that art, music, poetry and theater are powerful healing tools for traumatized children. An otherwise non-responsive child may be able to draw, mold, paint,
write, or dramatize what he cannot speak about himself. We’ve also noticed that artistic gifts are often enhanced in children, and that their works can be stunningly beautiful.
In 1995, recognizing our work with children in the arts, five Texas Foundations combined to build a 12,000 square-foot complex where artists and children could work together in whatever
medium worked best for a particular child. It houses a blackbox theater, a costume and sewing annex, a digital recording studio, a three-camera video editing suite, voice and music practice
rooms, dance performance spaces, an art gallery, and a whole wing for painting, sculpture, and graphic arts.