Charlie Newton, Executive Director of SPLASH Youth Arts Workshop, will be putting our November grant to work over the winter school break by providing free art classes to kids in the College Hill Courts area. Charlie, who grew up on the Westside and later went on to cultivate a successful career as an artist, has responded to the void in arts education for many local school children. He sees the 8 hours he and his staff will spend teaching each of this session's 40 students as an opportunity to pull them away from the negative influence of gangs and crime and to foster new creative and personal skills that go beyond their time with SPLASH. In learning to draw the human figure, for instance, Charlie estimates his students will hone knowledge in topics such as anatomy and art history to focus, critique, self-awareness, and confidence. It's big picture work boiled down and concentrated into small but powerful interactions.