A beginner intent upon exploring a budding talent, an intermediate in search of further guidance, a professional artist seeking to refine a skill - all can flourish at Perkins Center. Small classes and expert faculty guarantee exciting learning experiences.

Perkins Center's on-site offerings in Moorestown and Collingswood focus on a wide range of two- and three-dimensional art classes for adults and children including drawing, painting, pottery, dance, theater and more. Models in adult classes, life drawing/painting open studios and a ceramic program with ten electric wheels, hand building facilities and electric, raku and wood kiln firings, help set Perkins Center's programs apart. Click here for details about Perkins Center's Studio Classes

One day workshops at Perkins Center for the Arts affords participants the opportunity to try their hand at a new medium, hone their skills and enjoy solid studio time to work. These workshops are also a wonderful chance to meet and work with our remarkable faculty in a relaxed setting. Click here for details about Perkins Center's Workshops

Perkins Center for the Arts has become a leader in ceramics instruction in southern New Jersey. The pottery program includes classes in throwing on the potter's wheel and handbuilding techniques for beginning, intermediate and advanced students. Additional features of the program include electric, raku, experimental kiln firings, and a Clay Artists Cooperative with 24-hour studio access and exhibition opportunities. Click here for details about Perkins Center's Ceramics

The Conservatory at Perkins Center for the Arts provides year-round instruction on a variety of instruments including voice, piano, violin, flute, recorder, guitar and percussion. With an outstanding faculty of professional musicians from the region, the conservatory focuses on developing a foundation in classical music, and, for students who are interested in contemporary jazz, blues and rock, provides background and training in those disciplines. Click here for details about Perkins Center's Conservatory of Music

Each year, Perkins Center for the Arts presents an exhibition series that features artists from a six-state region. In Moorestown, our juried and curated shows include Works on Paper, Young at Art, Photography, Watercolor, Curator's Choice, Members and Faculty, and the Pottery Show and Sale. In Collingswood, exhibitions present the work of local artists, and have included oil and watercolor paintings, sculpture, mosaics and ceramics. Educational activities include public tours, slide presentations and workshops. Click here for more information about Perkins Center's Exhibitions

The Chamber Concerts Series and Moorestown DeCafé present live musical performances in an intimate, comfortable setting. Audiences can enjoy the work of established and emerging regional musicians. The chamber concerts are held in both Moorestown and Collingswood and feature classical compositions and international music, while the DeCafé offers folk, blues and jazz at our Moorestown location. Click here for more information about Perkins Center's Performance Series

Perkins Center's ARTS (Arts Reaching the Students) Program places professional artists in local schools for residencies ranging in length from six to 20 days. Individually designed projects build visual skills, teach problem-solving strategies and encourage communication among students. Perkins Center's artists work closely with the school's art teachers and classroom teachers to incorporate and creatively interpret and implement the New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards into the ARTS learning process.

The ARTS Program is co-sponsored by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Past programs in the southern New Jersey region have introduced students to a variety of media, including papermaking, fabric arts, sculpture, painting, theatre, jazz, African and modern dance, Native American arts and collage.

Themes incorporated into the residencies have included cultural diversity, building self-esteem, and concerns for our environment, humanity, and more.

Click here for a list of schools served in the ARTS Residency program.

The Summer Arts Program brings together 160 children from inner-city Camden with 160 children from Moorestown and surrounding communities. Boys and girls from vastly different social, cultural and economic backgrounds learn and experiment collaboratively under the guidance of an exemplary and diverse staff of professional artists who set a standard for respect, sharing, learning and understanding. The most recent 2006 Summer Arts Program highlighted the theme of Mother Nature - Beauty and the Beast. Artists helped students to understand and interpret hurricanes, tsunamis and global warming, using phenomena in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa to illustrate their impact.

In 2006 Perkins completed a major community mural project at the corner of Market Street and Haddon Avenue in Camden. The concept for the mural, titled "I Saw a City Invincible," was developed through community meetings with local residents; the result is a visual exploration of the past, present and future of Camden. Lead artist Cesar Viveros collaborated with artists Julie Deery and Bailey Cypress in the second phase of this project, to incorporate tiles and mosaics into the mural. Handmade tiles, designed and created by students at Camden's Sumner Elementary School (under the guidance of Deery and Cypress in an ARTS residency at the school), became a part of the mural, connecting an in-school arts program and a community arts project.

This project contributed to saving the mural building from the city's redevelopment plans. When community members learned that the building was endangered, they voiced their support for the mural, and the city reversed its decision. Art saved the building from the wrecking ball!

Two other murals were completed, as Perkins worked in partnership with the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and Camden Community Connections. At-risk youth learned about mural arts as a part of our Out-of-School Program and directly participated in the creation of a mural at Atlantic and 6th Streets and another at Waterfront South.

The Out-of-School Program features professional artists working with youth at four sites in Camden, NJ and at the YES youth residential facility in Camden County (serving a predominantly Camden City population). Twenty-four Out-of-School sessions (a total of 288 days) will take place in 2006-07, reaching 360 youth (a 20% growth over last year). Artist-Led Workshops for At-Risk Youth (a part of the Out-of-School Program) focus on exploring personal and societal issues of isolation, culture, identity and alternatives to violence. This program has grown from the need to develop methodologies to bring alienated individuals back into our communities. Perkins' Out-of-School partners and program sites include the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, St. Joseph's Pro-Cathedral School, Urban Promise, Camden Community Connections and others.

The JTA (Junior Training Artists) Program offers Camden City teens with an interest in the arts an opportunity to earn income by working as assistants to professional teaching artists.

In 2004-05, the JTA Program began training teens to work as artists' assistants in the Out-of-School program. A very strong teen interest in the program challenged Perkins' staff to respond, and we have expanded the program to include JTA's assisting in the Summer Arts Program, the Out-of-School Program and the Murals / Community Gardens Program. Eighteen teens will be employed in 2007.