A Walk On The Creative Side

When most people think about camp, they think about things like baseball, archery, riflery and fishing. The most known activities at camp are the physical ones, but here at CTT campers have the option of taking classes in things that fuel their creative fires.

Each session at CTT, campers have the option of taking arts and crafts, photography and guitar as classes. In addition to these classes, this session will see a revival of the Tall Timbers Tribune, which is a newspaper written by campers.

The first edition, due out in a few days, will feature stories on the various activities during free swim and a section on zombie survival (see The Only Prescription from a few days ago for more details on why). Sofia Navas Sharry is working as the photographer on the issue and an entire slew of campers, including Parker Nocket and Andrei Ross, are involved with the writing end. It has been a blast working on it so far and I can’t wait to see the final product.

The photography classes at CTT have changed a lot this year, but the campers are learning a lot. The old darkroom has been largely unoccupied because the campers are learning how to compose better pictures and learning some neat tricks with their own digital cameras. Sydney Alloy has been one of the most dedicated students so far (she has taken three classes in her two sessions here) and her expertise is growing daily. Olivia Kimmel and Sabine Lipten are taking their first classes this session but have already recorded some pretty awesome shots and Stevie Nocket has a natural eye for finding the best angle for a picture. If the campers continue to progress the way they have been, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next Pulitzer Prize winner come from amongst our ranks.

The sound of strumming six-strings isn’t a foreign one during free swims. Parker Mitchell has been playing for several years and he bangs away on his Yamaha almost every free swim. Catherine is now in her second session of lessons and is progressing wonderfully. Jackson Steele, who takes guitar class and private lessons, is also becoming a fixture when someone breaks out a guitar.

So camp is not only good for you physically, but you get to learn things that fire up the ol’ creative side as well. Whether a camper wants to be an artist, a photographer, a writer or a musician- we have something for them. It is really neat to see a kid dominate both on the field and in the art shack and sometimes these classes do reveal some surprising talents in kids who have never had the opportunity to discover them.

So let’s hear it for discovering new talents- that’s just one more reason why CTT is definitely the place where we want to be.