Advancing a Multi-Generational Mission
With a 25-year commitment to its PAFA partnership and a four-phased plan for
long-term investment in the arts and other extra-curricular pursuits, Roman
Catholic is taking the long view on what it means to engage its students, other
schools, and the greater Philadelphia community into the city’s thriving art
culture. Its combined programs are connecting professional artists to talented
youth, who go on to become artistic leaders and teachers in their own right, and
who return to PAFA and Roman Catholic to give back and continue the cycle.
Bongard strongly believes that this cycle promotes a different type of thinking,
one that reinforces the mission of Roman Catholic, as well as of the Archdiocese
of Philadelphia.
“Artists teach us, by their craft, to see and experience the transcendent.
Education in the fine and performing arts teach students about beauty —
and beauty draws us to God.”
With plans to attend Temple
University as a dual Fine Arts/
Business major, Adam puts in the
maximum possible time into his
school’s PAFA partner program.
Adam attends all four of PAFA’s
2-hour afterschool courses: Still
Life, Oil Painting, Illustration,
and Life Drawing — although he
admits pen and pencil illustration is
his best, and favorite, medium.
As for the biggest lesson Adam has learned
so far? “In art, you can’t get too hung up on
the expectation of your finished project. Go with the
flow of your artwork and remember — there is no
shame in starting over.”
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