Larkie Fleming first noticed her students at Fleming Arts Camp were multitalented when they would sit and enjoy the arts and crafts table she had set up for them while they waited for their piano classes.
Many of the parents would ask her if she knew of a drama class or a singing class, and Fleming knew that a camp where all the arts could be incorporated was the perfect answer.
“Because of the budget cuts in the arts at public schools, we wanted to make up for it during the summer,” Fleming said.
Fleming Fine Arts Camp has been a part of the Tampa Bay area for the last 25 years, with many of the campers having gone on to have professional careers in the arts.
This year, the camp will be running from June 6 to July 29 at Berkeley Preparatory School, for children ranging in age from infancy to 13. While there are many different kinds of summer camps, there are not many that are as comprehensive as this one.
The camp has four main focuses, music, art, drama and dance. While the children who attend are exposed to all the art forms, they are also allowed to choose what they enjoy the most. Not only are children exposed to creative movement, visual arts, computer animation and how to produce original works of art, they are also given the ability to visit bay area museums and gain an appreciation for the arts.
Theon Wells, a 17-year-old volunteer believes that different children will like different things about the camp. “Expose your children to as many things as possible,” Wells said, “they may take a liking to sports, or how the violin looks or how dancing works.” Sending kids to the Fleming Fine Arts camp is a one-of-a-kind experience.
Many camps don’t offer classes to students under the ages of 4, which is yet another thing that makes the Fleming Fine Arts Camp unique. The classes were introduced in 1999 as kinder music with visual arts, allowing the camp to incorporate things such as edible paint and clay to the program.
Daniel Spector, a 31-year-old ‘graduate’ of the Fleming Fine Arts camp, hopes that 25 years is just the beginning. Spector is now an accomplished director and teacher at the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and he looks back on the camp as his introduction to artistic expression and communication.
“Larkie planted the seeds of a career just by giving me some confidence,” Spector said.
Being in business for 25 years has given Fleming an experience that she said feels magnificent. She now has students in her kinder arts class that are second generation to the camp.
While many people wonder if Fleming is upset that there are now multiple art camps in the region, but she just finds it wonderful. Those first few summers, her students came from all around the Tampa Bay area, and she’s just thankful that everyone is being exposed to the arts.
“We feel special that we’ve lasted this long and that we’ve touched so many lives,” said Fleming, who still gets a thrill out of all the lives the camp has touched.
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 1, 2011.