Manchester's Yo Gallery is closing this week.
Since 1999, the gallery has selected students from the city's high schools to study and display their art.
But a lack of funding means this year's class will be the last.
New Hampshire Public Radio correspondent Rebecca Kaufman reports from Manchester.
The Yo Gallery's Program Director Darryl Furtkamp?s voice echoes as he walks through the smartly decorated two room space.
:22 this is the yo gallery, this is student work, from high school students, this is a particular theme exhibit, theme is humor, interpreting humor through art
The black and white checkered floor sets off the red brick walls.
Track lighting illuminates the students? pieces.
Some bright canvass paintings cover entire walls.
Other smaller pieces are displayed in black frames.
Sculptures sit perched on white ceramic blocks throughout the gallery.
It?s hard to believe the artists who created this work are in high school.
Daryl Furtkamp calls the Yo unique.
25:39 We were one of three museums that operated a youth program in new England that the national endowment gave money to so they probably see it as a model program, there are things in large metropolitan areas that operate in the summer months but nothing that has a year round program and a professional gallery space affiliated with it.
Every year, the Gallery accepted 30 students to participate, tuition free, in its educational art program.
Lauren Steele is going to be a junior at Manchester West.
She just finished her first year with the Yo Gallery and says it turned her into a serious art student.
8:15 I went there not knowing how to do a lot because I hadn?t really done a lot of art but I knew that?s what I wanted to do and within a year I got so much better, like I improved 100% and that was only after a year.
The Yo Gallery sits on the ground floor of a medium sized brick apartment building.
The neigborhood is low income neighborhood just south of downtown.
The freshly painted green and purple trim makes the Gallery stand out on the otherwise drab Cedar Street.
The project was Felix Torres?s idea.
He is with Manchester Neighborhood Housing Services.
8:49 a lot of people think the center city neighborhood is an area to avoid and by building an art gallery bringing people in you can say its not this horror story that people think of in your dreams, it?s a nice place to live and a nice place to see an art gallery.
And according to Program Director Daryl Furtkamp, people did come.
20:46 on opening nights we have in excess of 250 and are average was 75 to 125 for each opening?26:37 when you are working with high school kids its pretty easy to pull from different places, we had sponsorships from different banks and businesses, they provided an audience of their own, Manchester Neighborhood Housing Services works with constituency groups of bankers, realtors, attorneys, the Currier has their own constituency and artist would flock to the space because they way it looks and discover there were opportunities for them, after 6 months we were on a roll?
The Yo also held shows a year for visiting artists.
The Currier Museum of Art and the Manchester Neighborhood Housing Services sponsored the gallery.
The Currier provided in-kind services like studio space and staff.
And they applied for the program?s grant money.
Neighborhood Housing Services paid for the program?s operational costs of about 100,000 dollars a year.
Torres says his hope was that significant grant money would ease that burden.
3:18 I don?t expect it to be totally self sustaining, hope was it would have substantial support, 50 percent cost covered from grants, but it never got close, but it wasn?t going to get better, couldn?t have MNHS paying for the entire program
Torres says when a few big grant applications were rejected last summer, the Neighborhood Housing Services board began to worry about the Yo Gallery?s future.
He says hard economic times makes it very difficult to find grant money, especially in the arts.
And Torres adds that while the Yo Gallery program kept students ?off the street? that was not the intent.
23:45 if you are serving youth its easier to survive if your serving a lot and if you can show that, kids café¬ salvation army, Y program, youth side, service very defined, kids that go to café ¡re hungry, kids go to Yo want to do art, we know it helps them do better, can?t say it keeps them away from drugs, not are focus not what we were pitching at folks.
Those looking to salvage the program hoped the Currier, with their multi-million dollar endowment, could step to the plate.
But Currier director Susan Strickler says times are tough for them too.
Strickler says the Currier is committed to operating the art classes out of their museum.
But she says they are looking to spend a fraction of what MNHS spent.
7:08 I think one of the great unfilled promises of the program is how we can make the Currier a bigger part of the lives or how we can invite the citizens from the center city to feel the Currier is part of their lives, its their museum, and we find it quite frankly frustrating
Strickler admits the Yo Gallery attracted the community in a way the Currier has not.
She says that will be the Currier?s on-going challenge.
15 year old Lauren Steele has her own challenges.
She plans to study art in college.
And she?s got her eye on a school in Manhattan.
But she says her one year with Yo gives her an advantage.
7:47 one of the things that was really good about it, was that it expanded your portfolio so much because in school its all ?lets paint a still life?, and one of the things Daryl was always talking about is you want to do something different in your portfolio because they look at portfolio after portfolio after portfolio of painting apples
The Yo Gallery closes its doors for the last time this Thursday.
For NHPR news, I?m RK.
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