IT’S time for the National Gallery of Australia’s Summer Art Scholarship program, where 16 Year 11 students from every State and Territory come to Canberra for a week of workshops, mentoring, tours and discussions.

In this, its 15th year, the scholarship attracted more than 400 applications from remote, regional and metropolitan Australia. The lucky 16 students arrived in Canberra on Saturday, January 14 and are staying at the Brassey Hotel.

Supported by the National Australia Bank, it takes advantage this year of the NGA’s summer exhibition “Renaissance: 15th and 16th century paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo”.

Peter Naumann, Head of Learning and Access at the gallery, said many of the students from previous programs over the last 15 years had gone on to excel in diverse areas of the visual arts.

Gallery educator and summer program co-coordinator Adrian Boag, agreed. Many former scholars came to mind as notable successes, she said.

Lucy Quinn was now a gallery assistant at the National Portrait Gallery. Emily Casey, was exhibitions and promotions coordinator at M16 Artspace after doing a double degree in art practice and history, that Boag believes she might not have undertaken if not for the summer school. Another bright graduate has gone to Arts Tasmania and yet another to Parliament House.

I caught up with a group of scholars discussing exhibition design with gallery education officer Jo Krabman and exhibition designer Emma Doy in the midst of the unusual Children’s Gallery created by several very proud NGA staffers to help young people understand artistic principles of the High Renaissance like perspective and composition.

Most said their teachers had introduced them to the Renaissance at school, but not to this degree.

In the intensive summer course, scholars are broken up into smaller groups for discussions. According to Krabman, this allowed  the gallery to introduce them to the behind the scenes aspects of art as well as the presentation, hanging and changes afforded by new technologies.

Brisbane scholar Lachlan Stuart said: “It’s really good, we’d never learn this stuff in Brisbane.” Annelies Doecke from Alice Springs said that everyone in the summer program was interested in art but that in most cases it was a matter of “art and something else too.” She found it especially interesting to discover “all the jobs you can do.”

In Krabman’s view, by the end of the week they will “really have moved somewhere”. She said the program offered professional and personal opportunities as well as a look into the field of the arts.

Although she agreed with the students that it was an exhausting week, with round-the-clock experiences each, Krabman thought they were up to it, having all been through a gruelling application process which involved responding in writing to wear a work from the NGA collection, meaning that “they tend to be quite motivated”.

[box]This year’s National Summer Art Scholars are:  Jamie-Louise Woodhouse Barrett, from Emmanuel Catholic College, Beeliar, WA; Liam Vaughan, from Padua College, Mornington, VIC; Louis Payne, from Christ Church Grammar, Claremont, WA; Alexi Bouras, from Buckley Park College, Essendon, VIC;  Michael Lamey, from Cornerstone College, Mt Barker, SA;  Aiden Morse, from Don College, Devonport, TAS;  Louisa Rebellato, from St Dominic’s Priory College, North Adelaide, SA;  Adam Akam, from Newstead College, Launceston, TAS;  Annelies Doecke, from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Alice Springs, NT;  Taylor Singh, from Gungahlin College, ACT;  Hayley Chamberlain, from Palmerston Senior College, NT;  Nicholas Perillo, from Canberra Grammar School, ACT;  Lachlan Stuart, from St. Laurence’s College, South Brisbane, QLD;  Holly Craig, from Robert Townson High School, Raby, NSW;  Katherine Smith, from Rivermount College, Beenleigh, QLD; and Reanne Chidiac, from Delany College, Granville, NSW. [/box]