Page 45 - Journal 89-3 Full

rate of obesity. Moreover, food deserts demonstrate spatial inequity and distressed
community well-being with higher levels of food insecurity, limited retail food
stores, and elevated rates of poverty.
School deserts are similar to food deserts, as Alexander and Massaro (2020)
argued, in that market forces create neighborhoods based on income and racial
segregation resulting in access to high-quality schools concentrated among the
wealthy and White. Moreover, to affect a policy change requires a spatial visualization
of the social problem of a school desert. Furthermore, travel distance affects student
success, and the location of schools is important, as can be seen with a matter of
spatial and social injustice.
An art desert is defined similarly to the food desert; it is a place where there are
few opportunities to view, learn, or experience art. It reflects the same realities of
the neighborhood school desert where local schools deemed to be poor are closed
or students travel to attend more distant, good schools. In the case of the art desert,
students must either travel to view, learn, or experience art, or art must be brought
into the arts desert.

The Program
In art deserts like Appalachia, it is important to provide students with opportunities
to view, learn, and make art. Some arts programs evolved from settlement school
models to reach new audiences and to address new community problems. One such
program, ArtReach, was described by Kelly Hider, the Arrowmont Youth Education
Program Manager:
ArtReach provides a full day of arts and crafts instruction to students. . . .
Since its establishment in 1992 as a rural arts outreach initiative, ArtReach
has made a significant impact on the community. . . . Previously limited to
Sevier County Schools, ArtReach has recently expanded to school districts
and arts organizations across six Central Appalachian states.
ArtReach takes the experience of the Arrowmont arts and crafts school and shares
that with children in the community and in the surrounding states to help combat
the effects of living in an arts desert. The program also addresses the social-cultural
environment in which the Appalachian children live and work. Hider explained the
ripple effect of the program:
ArtReach on the Road is not only an immersive creative experience for
Appalachian youth—the program makes a wider impact on the communities
it serves. The students’ experience in the program is shared at home with
their parents and grandparents, sparking
dialogue about craft’s relationship to
their family history. Local economies are An art desert is defined
impacted—whenever possible, materials
are purchased at local vendors and art similarly to the food desert; it
stores in the community.
The program staff consider the economic impact is a place where there are few
ArtReach has on communities in tandem with opportunities to view, learn, or
the artistic contributions it makes. The staff
also seek to connect the art to the experience of experience art...
multiple generations of the families they serve.
Of course, the program cannot cover all of the

Educators’ Choice 43